


Dar'manda

by Kieranwritesfic



Series: The Lady of Mandalore [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Clan Kryze, F/M, Sorry Not Sorry, Touch-Starved, Virgin!Mando, lol what is canon, past infant death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-24 22:20:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22005352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kieranwritesfic/pseuds/Kieranwritesfic
Summary: They don't use names. Not at first. The Legate needs a guide through dangerous space, and the Mandalorian needs credits to feed the ship and his Foundling. But dangerous times make dangerous people, and the Legate's radical work in the Galactic Senate is drawing the wrong kinds of eyes. As the danger around the Legate increases, they are forced closer together, threatening the Mandalorian’s commitment to his oath never to let another living being see his face...
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Din Djarin (The Mandalorian TV)/Original Female Character(s), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Lady of Mandalore [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593805
Comments: 48
Kudos: 245





	1. The Legate

The Mandalorian, once called Din Djarin, preferred desert worlds. He preferred the dry heat and easy movement that the desert provided. However, he was starting to figure out that the forest worlds were a little easier on the baby. The cool, moist air was gentler on his skin, and there was more to look at. He would sit quietly, for once, in his cot and simply watch the scenery pass him by. There was a heavy smell of fresh greenery and of old rot in the air. 

They entered the small port town.The buildings were made of wood and composite materials, and smelled strongly of smoke and the roasting bodies of the giant bird species that made up a large portion of the livelihood of this planet’s inhabitants. The Child began to fuss, and he glanced at it. 

_ “You hungry?” _ he asked. 

The Child’s ears rose at the sound of his vocoded voice. He looked upset. The growl of their stomach was probably being picked up in orbit. That was just fine with Mando. He needed work, the Kid needed food. Credits were running low, and so were fuel supplies on the  _ Crest.  _

The pair entered a small tavern that advertised the best bone broth in town, but wasn’t too busy. He preferred to feed the kid broth, since he wasn’t actually certain what the kid could and couldn’t eat. He’d seen the thing swallow small critters whole, but he also wasn’t sure how to save it if it did start to choke. 

The being running the place was wiping out glasses when he walked in. He took a seat at a small table, and lifted the kid to a seat as well. There were low-reward bounties all over the place, and they kept shooting shifty glances at him, trying to appear casual. Mando flashed some credits, the server brought broth and flatbread for the Foundling. 

Keeping his eye on his Foundling, he walked up to the bar. The Bartender looked thrilled. 

“I’ve heard rumors of a Mandalorian in this part of the system. Glad to see you. There’s someone looking for you.Maybe now that skinny bastard will screw off.” 

Mando paused. Though for all appearances, he was a composed but prepared warrior, his alarm bells were ringing. Under his helmet, his brows furrowed. 

“Who?” 

“Some Core Worlder looking for some muscle. Says he’s got a job for your kind specifically. He usually comes in about this time--ope, there he is.” 

The man that came in was freakishly tall, but human nonetheless. He looked like he’d been grabbed from both ends and stretched out. He was sallow-faced and thin, but had a rich man’s bearing. He was wearing a rich man’s clothes, that much was for sure. 

When he spotted the Mandalorian, he was visibly relieved. Mando kept his hands open, but his arms ready. He unclipped the strap of his holster, the cold metal of his blaster pistol smooth under the leather of his glove. The man walked up to him. Mando was not a short man, but he still had to crane his neck to get a good look. 

“Hello, Mandalorian,” he said genially. “I cannot tell you how relieved I am to find you.”

_ “You’ve been looking for me?” _ he asked, making it clear with his tone that he was not happy to have been sought out so openly. 

“I have. Well, a Mandalorian. Clearly, you are a professional of some skill, given your beskar armor.” 

_ “You could say that.” _

Mando could tell he wouldn’t have to prompt much with this guy. He was a sniveling idiot and would tell Mando all he needed to know, and take his time with it. The kid was sipping broth and jabbing the flatbread with his claws. He’d be fine for a few minutes, but it wouldn’t take long for him to get bored. 

_ “What’s the job?”  _

“If you would accompany me to my lady’s place of--”

_ “No.” _

The man balked. “Sir, my lady is one of privacy. She would forbid me to discuss her business publicly. If you would allow us our privacy--”

_ “I said _ \--”

“--then my lady would be happy to make you an offer you would be a fool to refuse.” 

The man--A functionary of some kind, spoke with a kind of tone that the Mandalorian knew meant confidence. He gave a good long pause, long enough that the man began to lose his cool. Mando needed the credits. Scouring the galaxy took gas. 

“Where will I find her?” 

“You'll find her in the warehouse across from the cantina near the Landing fields. Shall we expect you this evening?”

“I’ll be there at sundown.”

“Very well, Mandalorian.” 

The man left the bar, and Mando turned to look at the Kid. He was tearing the flatbread into pieces and dropping them on the floor, cooing happily. He sighed. He paid for the broth and tipped the server. Flashing credits was always a gamble, but combined with the armor, it usually ensured cooperation rather than confrontation. The Kid yawned widely, all their little teeth showing. He wasn’t going to be able to walk back to the ship. 

The Mandalorian picked up the Kid, and carried him back to the poorest example of a home that could be found in the galaxy. 

***

The sunset on this planet was probably one of the nicer ones Mando had ever seen. He was lucky when the kid passed out, and Mando left him in the bunk with the slider shut, sure the kid would be fine. Not certain, but pretty sure, and that was going to have to be good enough. 

He walked back to the port. The warehouse was a more typical style of building, stuccoed and square. It was designed to be easily recognizable to the few travelers who would pass through town and need it. 

Pounding his gloved fist against the door, he waited to be allowed in. When the door slid open, he found the tall man again. The place inside was quiet, and nearly abandoned. A few old crates of wares lined the walls, but not much more. The lights were weak and flickered hard, and a layer of dust an inch thick had settled all over the place. The Functionary lead him to an office labeled in Aurebesh. It said “Foreman.” 

“My Lady,” he said. 

_ “Come in.” _

The voice inside was feminine, but firm. When the door was opened, the woman inside was revealed. She stood in front of a large desk, glaring at a datapad and piles upon piles of paperwork. She wore a severe black dress that clung to her curves like it was wet, with a flat neckline and a hood that she had pinned over a large bun of dark hair, though he could see that it had been gathered and braided away from her face. Her earrings were… something, alright, and they matched her ethereal green monolid eyes. Her skin was pink from the sun, with a dusting of freckles over her nose and cheeks that interrupted the regal look she was going for.

“I told you, Haloran, I didn’t want to be disturbed ag--” she said as she lifted her head. She paused when she saw the Mandalorian. Her eyes went wide when she saw his beskar armor. 

The Functionary, apparently called Haloran, looked smug. “I found that Mandalorian you requested.”

The lady walked around the desk, her trailing skirt rustling quietly. She wore bracelets that had a particular timbre as they jangled. It was familiar. 

“I’ll say you did,” she said. The Mandalorian walked into the office. He kept his shoulders square. Absently, she said, “You’re still fired though,” to the Functionary. 

_ “Heard you had a job for me.”  _

She was young, maybe in her mid-20s. She wouldn’t stop staring at the beskar. He was getting used to stares of a certain kind--stares of envy, of jealousy, of hatred or fear. This was something else. Something he hadn’t seen in a while. 

Admiration. Bald admiration. 

“That’s… that’s a lot of beskar,” she said. Unconsciously, she began to reach up. The impulse to touch it was so strong it was overriding her reason. “You really must be one of the best.”

_ “Yeah,”  _ he said, trying to sound neutral.  _ “You’ve read about my people, I’m sure. I get that a lot. _ ” 

“Something like that…”

She looked away from the armor, composed herself, and looked back at him, clasping her hands. Pasting a smile on her face, she said, “I do. Have a job for you that is. Um… in fact, pretty sure you’re the best guy for it, if that armor is any indication,” she said, walking around the desk again. She pressed a few buttons, and a bright blue map projected itself from the desk. “I need passage through Hutt space. A guide.”

The Mandalorian was silent for a good long minute. 

“ _ You mean a bodyguard.” _

“Your word,” she said with a shrug. “I need to get to Nakadia quickly.”

_ “Go around.”  _

“Not an option. It would take too long. Look, I can pay you, that’s not an issue.”

_ “I was a bounty hunter, lady, not a bodyguard. You need a real bodyguard. Or a mercenary. Or two. Not me.”  _

“I know for a fact that I need a Mando, and you seem to be the only one available. Unless you know where I can find some more, you’re all I’ve got.” 

_ “If you know so much about beskar, then you must know that Mandalorians hate Hutts. Hutts don’t much care for Mandalorians, either, especially not me, since I’ve brought in more than my fair share of their cronies. I’m not doing it.”  _

“Now see here,” said Haloran, stepping forward. “Surely, there must be some kind of arrangement we can make…”

“Be quiet, Haloran,” said the lady sharply. “You’re not gathering your things, so I’m assuming you didn’t get the memo about being  _ fired _ .” 

The Mandalorian turned to leave. This had been a waste of time. The Kid was probably awake, probably tearing up the ship, and probably in need of a change. 

“I can pay you in beskar, if you prefer.”

That caught his attention. 

He turned. The lady was leaning heavily against the desk, her head held low. She sighed, and walked to a safe in the wall. She pressed in a keycode, and laid her hand flat against the print scanner. When the door opened, she produced a round white camtono. It was heavy. She walked it over to the desk. He was reminded of the Imperial Client, the one from whom he had stolen the Child. 

“Beskar and credits, if that’s what you want,” she said as she punched in the security key on the camtono. It opened, revealing a stack of eight ingots of beskar. It was a long moment before she said anything. She was staring at the beskar like it was all she had in the world, like it was breaking her heart to even offer it. “I need a Mandalorian. I know your services are rare, and the best. I’m willing to pay for it.” 

The Mandalorian considered. How many foundlings could be sponsored with her beskar? He could replace his greaves. He could put fuel in the ship and food in the Kid with her credits. 

_ “What do you want on Nakadia?”  _

“Senate business.”

_ “You’re a senator?”  _

“A legate. Assistant legislator. I write policy for the Republic.” 

_ “How many credits?”  _

“10,000.” 

_ “Make it 20. And the beskar.”  _

“Done,” she said. “How soon can we leave?” 

_ “Not so fast. Nakadia is in the Mid Rim. I’m carrying cargo I don’t want found. If you travel with me, you travel Iight, and I mean  _ light. _ No stops.” _

She smirked. “What do I look like, a Nabooian? I’m a light packer. Can we leave in the morning?” 

_ “Yes. I’ll send you the coordinates. We meet at sunrise.” _

“Yes, sir,” she said. 


	2. The Pilot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mandalorian and the Legate begin their journey, and things begin to go wrong almost immediately.

The Mandalorian woke up tired. He sat up in his narrow bunk, cursing it. Rubbing his eyes heavily, scrubbing his hands over his short brown hair, and scratching his stubbled face, he prepared himself to put the helmet back on. He needed a shave, but rarely had the time to himself anymore.

_ No living thing…  _

_ I am not living.  _

He heard the Kid cooing in his little pram, and smirked. That was the reason he didn’t have the time. 

If he was being perfectly honest, which he almost never would, he was starting to feel pretty… gross. He hadn’t had the chance to climb in the refresher or shave since he had brought the kid on board. Whenever the Kid slept, he found himself exhausted, too tired to think about anything but falling into the bunk. He still smelled of blood and the peculiar sanitary smell of bacta. There were still clumps of gore and dust in his hair. 

He pulled his helmet back on, opened the door of the small bunk, and found the Child climbing out of his crate. The Mandalorian opened a bread ration for the kid and poured it into a dish with water, stirring it around a little. The bread activated, puffing into a plump round roll, and he handed it over. The Foundling gnawed on it. Mando could see faint sunlight streaming into the cockpit, and he sighed. He’d overslept. 

Carefully lifting the Child, he placed it into the bunk with his bread. 

_ “You stay here and try to stay quiet, alright? Not a sound, or I’ll feed you to a Sarlacc. Got it?”  _

The Child cooed noncommittally. 

_ “Good.”  _

He closed the door of the bunk.

Walking over to the gangway, he pressed the only blue button on the console, and opened it. It lowered with a long metallic whine as if he hadn’t just had the hydraulics looked at the month before. When it lowered, the Legate was already waiting, and appeared to have been doing so for quite some time. She was slowly scrolling over a datapad, and taking notes in a real paper journal. She’d changed, from the dramatic black gown to practical boots, a loose tunic, and a fitted jacket. Her hood was lifted over her hair, again in a bun, and pinned down. There was an element of modesty that he was familiar with. 

“You’re late,” she said, without looking up from her work. “Sun’s been up for an hour.” 

The Mandalorian had nothing to say to that. She finished her sentence, then closed her journal and packed her things in her satchel. The Mandalorian looked around, expecting crates. He’d heard horror stories of Core Worlders’ wardrobes from transport drivers. Yet all she seemed to have was the satchel and a hip case.

_ “Where’s the functionary?”  _ the Mandalorian asked. 

“Fired,” said the Legate as she walked up the gangway. When she got to the top, she looked into the Mandalorian’s visor. “Tell me, hunter, what is the one language you should never lie about speaking out here in the Outer Rim?” 

Unsure if she was actually expecting an answer, he gave her one anyway. 

_ “Jawa.” _

“Jawa is good, but more important.” 

_ “Huttese. _ ”

“That’s right! No flies on the Mando,” she said, gesturing at him. “Well, of course, a nobleman’s son from Coruscant who went to the good Imperial schools and has had every advantage in life wouldn’t know anything about Huttese. I knew the Jawa on his CV was dung, but let me ask you this--what kind of a spoiled, privileged, carefully trained master of the administrative arts doesn’t know how to send professional correspondence?” she continued. “Imagine my shame when I got a message from Senator Organa’s office, from her personal assistant, that my correspondence had been nearly unintelligible for the last six months, and Senator Organa was starting to get irritable about it. Well, of course, I just about died.” 

While going on this tirade she had been setting down her bag and pulled out her work. He’d raised the gangway. The two walked up the ladder to the cockpit, and she settled down into the co-pilot’s chair. 

“Honestly, next time, I’m not bothering to hire anyone from the Core Worlds. I think I need a Rodian. Maybe a Twi’lek. Someone with some brains. I’d take a Hutt over a Coruscanti again.” 

The Mandalorian grunted. 

“He said he wanted to travel! See the Outer Rim! And I told him I liked to run in rough crowds. I don’t think he understood what ‘rough’ meant.” 

This was going to be a long ride. 

He began the sequence of switches and buttons and levers that woke the  _ Crest  _ from her slumber. The twin engines roared to life. The Legate settled into quiet as they lifted off and entered Teth’s atmosphere, ascending towards open space. 

The occasional scratch of her pen on paper was the only sound she made. Well, aside from the even rarer snorting as she scrolled through the wall of text on her datapad. He could almost forget she was there. He needed to go feed the Child, and let it know he hadn’t forgotten it. 

_ “Even through hyperspace, it’s a long ride to Nakadia,”  _ he said.  _ “At least ten hours. And we’re 4 hours from the nearest run.” _

“I can stay busy,” she said absently. 

A few minutes passed by. She was still working. 

He asked,  _ “Is that part of the reason you might be thinking you’re a target for assassins?” _

“Hmm?” she asked. She realized he was talking about the datapad. “Oh, yes. Very much, yes.” 

She didn’t elaborate, which he found odd. He didn’t care what it was, he doubted it had much to do with him, but her very presence this far from the Core Worlds was unusual. 

_ “What is it?”  _

“Um… so I write policy for the Republic, and right now we’re trying to figure out how to re-instate and upgrade Holonet access to the Outer Rim worlds.” 

_ “Oh. Yeah, that would do it.”  _

“I know there are still pockets of Imperial resistance out here. They want to make sure the Outer Rim territories never know that the Republic gives a damn about them. I aim to change that.” 

_ “Why do you care?”  _

“Holonet access improves quality of information. Just because you guys are a million parsecs away doesn’t mean you don’t deserve access to the same knowledge everyone in the Core Worlds has. You deserve to be able to make educated decisions about your participation in government, about voting--”

The Mandalorian couldn’t help but snort. 

The Legate raised her head, gave him a look. “If you  _ want  _ to.”

_ “Not many folks out here care about the Republic, if they even know whether or not they are in it.”  _

“And yet, they accept Republic credits.” 

_ “Credits are credits, so long as the government that issues it is running.” _

She stood up, stretched broadly, almost smacking his helmet as she did. “Vacc tube?” 

_ “Downstairs.” _

He turned in his seat, snatching her arm. She whirled around and struck his hand, which didn’t deter him. He was tougher than that. Her punch was weak, but fast. The Legate was quick. 

_ “Don’t. Touch. Anything. _ ” 

“Let go of me.” 

He did. 

Grumbling and rubbing her arm, she marched out of the cockpit and down the ladder. The Mandalorian set their course and turned the  _ Crest’s  _ controls to autopilot. He heard the flush of the vacc tube, but then… nothing. For a good few minutes, he didn’t hear anything, and was about to stand up to go investigate when he heard the whoosh of the bunk slider. 

He was down the ladder faster than he’d ever moved before, and when he turned, he saw the Legate standing in front of the bunk, staring at the Child. The expression on her face was difficult to read. Plain shock wasn’t all he was seeing. 

Hot rage pulsed inside him, spurring him to action. His hand lingered over his blaster, twitchy, waiting. He was poised to strike. But no one moved. 

The Child reached his little hand out, his ears perked. He cooed sweetly, curiously. The Legate reached out to him as well, and their hands touched. 

“The Whill in me recognizes the Whill in you, little one,” she said gently. The Child cooed excitedly, and reached up with both arms, toddling to the edge of the bunk. Mando surged forward, ready to catch him, his arms outstretched--but the Legate was closer. She gently lifted him into her arms, and held him close against her breast. The Child snuggled down against her, and looked into her face with shining brown eyes. 

The Legate smoothed his ears, whispered to him. Soft and sweet, and seemingly exactly what the Child craved. A mother’s touch. The Mandalorian watched, still ready to intervene, but also… curious. 

“Now, what exactly the hell,” she said, her tone slowly increasing in volume and rage, “Were you thinking!?” she snarled at the Mandalorian. “You locked a child in your bunk with nothing to do? We’ve been on the road for a couple hours!” 

He didn’t say anything. 

Then, the Legate’s face changed. She went shock white, and clutched the Kid close to her. “No… you son of a bitch,” she snarled. She drew her blaster, aimed it at him, and turned off the safety. Mando drew his own, his hand steady. 

_ “What are you--” _

“You’re going to tell me exactly what you are doing with this child, why it was in your  _ bunk _ , and why you were trying to keep it a secret from me, or I will shoot you with this blaster until you are a dead heap on the floor.” 

_ “Stop that! You’re scaring him!”  _

The Child was fussing, gripping the Legate’s dress with one hand while reaching toward the Mandalorian with the other. 

_ “I rescued him from Imperials. He’s my foundling--my son. Now set him down.”  _

The Legate narrowed her eyes at him for a long minute. She decided she trusted him, and put her blaster away. 

“Imperials?” she asked. She set the Child down and let it toddle back to the Mandalorian, who picked it up and cradled it easily in his arm. The Child babbled at him, and he said,  _ “Now you be quiet, you’re in trouble.”  _

“Is this that cargo you were talking about? This species is rare.”

There was a shearing sound. Both The Mandalorian and the Legate froze, and the baby’s ears perked. There was a crash, a grinding, and a pop. The Legate and the Mandalorian made eye contact, though he knew she couldn’t actually see his eyes. He looked at the Child, whose ears went low. Alarms went off in the cockpit, and the Legate went flying into the wall, shielding the Child. A cry ripped from her, but she kept him safe. The Mandalorian crashed into the ladder, snagging a rung to hold him upright. The Legate shook herself off and followed him up to the cockpit. 

She took the Child and sat in the copilot’s seat so that the Mandalorian could drive. He leaned into the controls, sending them surging forward. He was getting used to dogfights. 

Through the comm, the pilot in the other ship taunted the Mandalorian. 

_ “Give it up, Mando. I can fly circles around you and you know it.”  _

The pilot was right above them, flying… a Republic x-wing. 

The Legate and the Mandalorian made eye contact again. She was holding the Child against her chest, gripping the arms of the seat. The Mandalorian made an evasive maneuver, one that threatened to make the Legate lose her lunch. She gasped, gripping the Child even tighter. 

_ “Your friend is going to get you killed!”  _ snarled Mando. 

“He’s not my friend!” 

The Child whined a little, and the Mandalorian pulled a hard left, evading bright red fire. In the whirl and confusion, the Legate saw the attacker’s craft.

“He’s not my friend--but I know him,” she said. Standing up, she reached for the comm. This close, Mando could count the threads in her shawl, could smell the woodsy scent of her perfume. He was already struggling to keep it together, between terror for the Child and anger about his ship. Now he had this to deal with. 

“Pilot, ceasefire and stand down! This is Legate Atin Silva of the Galactic Senate, there are children aboard! Ceasefire at once!” 

There was a pause, but the firing stopped. The Legate punched numbers into the keypad in the console. “I’m sending you credentials now. Rodeo, if that’s you, I’m going to rip your visorplate out of your gray hold, if you know what I mean,” she growled. 

The credentials sent. The pilot read them, and the X-Wing descended into view, so that the pilot inside could see the Legate. 

_ “Atin? What the hell are you doing on a bounty hunter’s ship in Hutt space?”  _

“Well, getting a ship repaired, I guess, thanks to you. I hired a Mando for protection, what the hell do you think I’m doing? What are  _ you  _ doing in Hutt space in a Republic X-wing?” 

_ “... Freelancing.”  _

“Freelancing? Are you serious? I’m about to freelance my foot up your ass! Get back to base before I call your commanding officer!” 

_ “Hey, that Mando has a bounty on his head!”  _

_ “No I don’t! Greef Karga himself removed the bounty on me. I’ve made good with the Guild.”  _

_ “Guild bounties aren’t the only bounties.” _

The Legate looked at him. He could almost see the thoughts clicking together like droid pieces. After a beat, she looked back out towards the X-Wing. 

“Yeah, well, he’s got diplomatic immunity right now. You are being ordered to head back to base  _ now _ .” 

There was a heavy sigh.  _ “Fine. But you owe me, Atin.”  _

“You almost blew me up, you hotshot puffed-up moon jockey!” 

_ “Alright, alright!”  _

The Mandalorian watched as the X-Wing turned, and flew off. The Legate watched, her eyes narrowed. She huffed. 

“I can’t stand battle pilots. No good for anything but flirting and getting blown up.” 

She turned back to the Mandalorian. His face tingled and burned. Ever since IG-11 had removed his helmet, he had felt strangely exposed, even when wearing it. To have her that close was unnerving. 

“Imps looking for the kid?”

_ “Yeah.” _

The Legate turned her attention out the window. “Well, don’t worry about that guy again. I’m going to destroy him. Working with Imperials… honestly.”

There were alarms blaring and warning lights flashing, but Mando’s brain had turned itself off. The Legate-- _ Atin, her name was Atin, that was a Mando’a name, an old Mando’a name-- _ looked at the navigation. “Here, make landing here. I know a mechanic out there who will keep his mouth shut. I’ll cover it, and I have a feeling it’s near a hyperspace run that I’m not supposed to know about.” 

_ “Your name is Mandalorian,” _ he said. 

“Weird, so is yours,” she said back. 

She took the Child, walked out of the cockpit, and walked down the ladder, leaving the Mandalorian to wonder how in the hell he’d gotten himself into this mess. 

_ Atin _ was an old Mando’a word. It meant  _ stubborn.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all there is so much Mandalorian lore that hasn't been used yet. I hope we get some Din using Mando'a next season???


	3. The Bath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Legate Silva can see -- and smell -- that the Mandalorian could use a break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the TW: this fic does mention infant loss.

The Legate, whose name was apparently Atin, stared down the Mechanic. The Mandalorian watched the Mechanic’s droids carefully. They were eyeing him and the ship. 

“I’ve got a thousand Republic credits if you can be quick and keep your mouth shut. You get done by tonight, I might find another hundred for you.” 

The mechanic was a rare long-fingered species that Mando had forgotten the name of. It leered at the Legate, gestured to her body. Perversion was as universal a language as Basic, and the Legate was not impressed or flustered. There was a series of beeps and a clank. The droids were already touching his machinery, and he shouted. They paused. 

_ “Hey! Don’t touch that!” _ he snarled. It was an impulse. He was trying not to be such a bastard about droids, but it was a learning curve, and he didn’t trust these ones. 

The Legate and the Mechanic both turned to look at him. The Legate’s eyebrow cocked, and she put her hand on her hip. 

_ “No droids!” _ he barked. 

The Legate stared at him. “You can’t be serious,” she groaned, dropping her hand. 

_ “Do I look like I’m joking?”  _

The Legate sighed.She turned back to the Mechanic. “1,500 Republic credits for speed, secrecy… and no droids.” 

The Mechanic replied with a grudging assent, and the two of them shook on it. The Mechanic turned and yelled at his droids. She walked back up the gangway, passing close enough that the voluminous skirt of her tunic brushed his leg. Close enough that she could smell him. 

Mandalorians were clean. Under all that armor, squeaky clean. He was filthy, and he knew it. He leaned into his helmet, and rested the helmet against his hand. Maybe, if he was lucky, once this was all done, he could sneak in some time to clean up, if he got the Kid to run around enough, get tired out enough to take a nap. Foregoing sleep for a bath seemed unwise, but at the same time… 

There was banging inside the ship, then the Legate reappeared with his pack. 

“Come on, everyone,” she announced. “Let’s do lunch.” 

She slipped her shawl off while picking up the Child, and wrapped it around the Child. Through some complicated witchcraft involving a lot of wrapping and tying, the Kid was suddenly on her back, secured there, and not falling off. And she was walking away, with his head free to turn and look at everything. 

The world they’d taken refuge on was a cold world, this settlement being in an unusually warm area. The tundra past town was vast and nearly endless, while inside the ground was frozen solid under their boots. 

_ “Have you spent much time on this planet?”  _

“Well, I spent a few weeks in this port a few years ago. There’s an excellent bathhouse with all you can eat stew and hot caf. Trust me. This place is good.” 

_ “Great,”  _ he sighed. __

The Mandalorian wondered exactly what it was that she had pulled out of his ship, but figured whatever it was he could probably replace it easily enough. This port was a busy, bustling place, where the locals wore colorful garments and the hum of prayer joined the raucous laughter of commerce. The Legate was gracious, excusing herself frequently and dipping out of the way of others. When kids crashed into her, she sneakily checked her pockets, but smiled all the same. She blended in easily. 

As usual, it was he who caught eyes. Their stares glinted off his beskar, shielding him from their fear and contempt, but not their awe. When the Legate talked, which she often did, the stares of others towards him either softened or hardened depending on their opinion of her. If they were inclined to like her, they were inclined to find him less scary for her presence. If they were inclined to  _ like  _ her, then they hated him even more. 

Finally, they reached a tall building of dark wood. It wasn’t exactly  _ classy,  _ but it was nicer than many of the other buildings around it. Inside, a busy tavern was filled with smells that set the Mandalorian’s stomach growling and turned his resentment fully against the Legate. She set the Child on a chair, and gestured for the Mandalorian to sit as well, before heading up to the counter. She had a conversation with the attendant that involved slipping a few credits out of her girdle and handing them over, nice and easy. The attendant nodded, an understanding was reached, and a stack of plush white towels was handed over. 

When the Legate returned, she picked up the Child, and said, “Alright, let’s go.” 

The Mandalorian sighed as he stood and followed. Down a set of stairs, down a corridor, to the last private bathing room on the left. Curtains and a swinging set of doors separated the room from the rest of the hall. It was dark, humid, and made the Mandalorian’s clothes cling even worse. Things began chafing. 

The Legate set the Child down, said, “Wait here a moment,” and walked in, setting the towels on a table where a meal had already been placed. There was a thick hot stew, with a crusty loaf of bread, sweet butter, and hot black caf in a cup and a kettle. The rich smells were overwhelming, and his stomach snarled like it was going to attack. 

He looked around. There was a small shower with a stool and coarse washcloths for scrubbing. Fancy little soaps. A large pool in the floor flowed with natural hot spring water, slightly green and smelling of metal. There was a granite floor, and the whole room, though wood, had a cave-like atmosphere. 

“Good! You’re hungry,” she said. Once she was standing in the doorway, she grabbed the curtain, and said, “Have fun!” 

_ “Hey, what are you doing?”  _

She looked over. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m going to sit right there, and talk the whole time so you know where I am. No one is going to disturb you,” she said solemnly, patting her hidden blaster holster. “No one.” 

The Mandalorian stared through his visor at her. He was… free. He had a childminder. A meal. It was too good to be true. 

_ “What’s the catch?”  _

“The catch is that you need to stop smelling like a bantha. You’re a Mandalorian, smell like one.” 

_ “And why should I trust you?” _

The Legate shrugged. “Am I asking you to trust me?”

_ “Yes.” _

She could destroy him. This woman could absolutely destroy him here and now. Take away what made him who he was, what made him Mandalorian. Would it be in her best interest? No. But there were some sickos in the galaxy, and maybe she was one. She stared at him for a long minute. Then, all she said was, “Well, then, I guess you’ll have to decide if you do or not. I’m not asking.”

She closed the curtain, and as promised, she sat down where he could see her at the bottom of the doorway. The Child toddled into her arms, and she chatted at him. The Mandalorian unclipped his rifle’s shoulder strap. Well, alright. 

He slipped off his helmet, and carefully unstrapped and set down all of his armor, wiping it down with a clean cloth. He set it reverently on the table beside the towels, his helmet beside it, looking out toward the room. Without his armor on, he felt exposed, raw and naked. He slipped off his gloves, setting them down next. The bag that the Legate had packed carried his razor, his shaving soap, his comb and toothbrush, and a fresh change of clothes. She’d been planning this all along. 

He ate first, savoring the hot stew and the tangy bread, slathered with fresh butter. He Chased every bite with hot, bitter caff. Once he had eaten his fill, plus some, he sat for a minute with the cup, letting it settle. 

“The Child is asleep. Poor little thing is so overwhelmed.”

He didn’t reply, but she carried on anyway. 

“Yeah, when I was a new parent, things were tough. Everything was a mess, and I stank. I was too scared to let the nanny droid touch him, but luckily one of my fellow legates came down and saw the rough shape I was in.”

She readjusted herself and the Child. Heavy, thudding steps approached. The being, in garbled Basic, asked if the room was occupied, to which the Legate replied that it was and would be for a good long while. When the being started to sound threatening, the Mandalorian edged toward his armor, specifically toward his helmet. There was a quiet click. 

“I said,” the Legate reiterated, her voice as level as glass, “That this room is occupied, and will be for a good long while. You may leave, sir.” 

She’d drawn her blaster. She was deadly serious. The being slumped away, saying that she didn’t have to be like that, he was just asking. Once the footsteps had receded, the Mandalorian let his breath out.

“You’re alright, Mando. Don’t you worry about a thing,” she said. “You just take it easy.” 

And he did. Under the gentle spray of the showers, he scrubbed his golden brown skin until it was shiny and pink. He shaved by feel until his jaw was nearly as smooth as hers, outside of the scars. He did not speak. Even the sound of his naked voice was too much of him to give away. 

He eyed the steaming tub. He could hear the soft breathing of the Child, the gentle murmurings of the Legate. She was humming. For a brief second, he thought he heard her sniff, and maybe cry, but he ignored it. 

“Those tubs are to die for, Mando, don’t miss out,” she said. Her voice was a little broken. She had been crying. She was rocking the Child. 

He shrugged, and climbed into the clear green water. The steam curled off into the air, the hot water a shock to his chilled system and tender skin. He sat down, and suddenly found that he was completely and entirely at ease. Completely against his own will, of course. Knots in his back unknotted after years of being tied. Muscles he hadn’t even known he had ached with relief. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He rested his head against the cold granite floor. For once, his sigh was not one of frustration. 

“Hey, Mandalorian?” 

He raised his head, blinked. Confused, he looked around. His fingers had gone wrinkled from the water, and he was hot and flush all over. He felt  _ great.  _

“We should probably head back to the Mechanic’s shop, check on the ship,” the Legate said tenderly. The Child had woken up, and Mando could hear him cooing. 

Standing up, Mando waded out of the hot pool and dried off with the fluffy towels that he was suddenly grateful for. There were lots--she’d asked for extras. He used two. He pulled on his clothes, his flak jacket, his armor. He packed his things. He was  _ himself _ with his iron skin intact. He packed the bag back up with his dirty clothes and toiletries, then pulled his helmet back on. Once he was certain he was all in order, he opened the curtain. 

The Legate looked up at him as he stepped out. The Child made happy little babbles as he toddled to his guardian. Mando bent down, picked up the Child. There was a tray with crumbs of sweet buns and a few bones on it. They had eaten while he’d been out. 

_ “How long was I in there?”  _

“Asleep? An hour or so. Not long. Your snoring was quite charming, by the way,” she teased as she stood up. Under his armor, The Mandalorian bristled. 

She tucked away her blaster, and their small crew left the inn and made their way down the streets. They were far less busy now. The streets were quieter, the shopkeepers had mostly closed up for the day.

“This planet has a midnight sun, so it’s later than it looks,” she clarified. “It’s dinnertime.” 

The Mandalorian and the Legate were both skittish. Something seemed off. A Trandoshan watched them pass by, honing a vibroknife. A Zabrak, identifiable only by the spikes sticking out of the loose weave of his hood, sized up Mando’s rifle. 

The Legate intertwined her arm with the Mandalorian’s, and leaned in close. In a level, friendly voice, she said, “Mandalorian, I really don’t like this.” 

_ “How many do you see?”  _

“Five.”

He didn’t answer. 

“They’re Black Sun Gang,” she said, the friendly tone falling away. “Particularly unfriendly to the Holonet effort.” 

_ “Informed people don’t pay protection.”  _

“I’ll keep that in mind.” 

A second Zabrak stepped in front of them. The Legate played her hand away, but considering she was the only one in this fight who wasn’t made entirely of weapons, she didn’t have much of one to play. She drew her blaster without raising it, and said, “Can I help you, sir?” 

“Yeah. You can make me a whole lot of money,” he said with a grin. 

“I’m so sorry, sir, I can’t do that, unfortunately. However, I can make you dead,” she said. 

The Zabrak laughed. The Mandalorian tucked the Child into her shawl, drawing his own blaster and the vibroknife in his pocket.

The Legate aimed, fired. She was a quick shot, and a damn decent one too. The Zabrak fell, and the Legate ran, with the Mandalorian following her down into cover. They ducked behind a market stall that sold lengths of beads strung into long strands. 

_ “You and the kid get back to the ship,”  _ ordered the Mandalorian.  _ “I’ll cover you.” _

“Give me the rifle,” she said. 

_ “No. Now go!”  _

Blaster fire pinged off the stall and the walls behind them. Both ducked, and the Legate slung the Child from her back to her side, shielding him with her own body. 

“Dammit, Mando, you’ve got weapons flying out of your gray hole, give me the rifle! I can’t protect either of us in a hand-to-hand fight,” she hissed, before seeing a scarfaced Klatooinian running up behind Mando. He knew he was there, but the Legate was quicker, shooting him before he could get close enough for the Mandalorian to kill. 

_ “Then I’ll cover you, now go!”  _

The Legate turned and ran, and the Mandalorian was close behind her. The two dashed through town, taking a side street that led to the same street the shop was on. 

_ “I counted five--” _

“We took out two--” she said. 

They walked right into an ambush, four black-clad gangsters blocking off the street in front of the shop. They turned to run, but there were two more. The Mandalorian could fight off two Klatooinians, that was no problem, but the kid and the Legate could be captured. As it was, she was getting winded. She was right, she couldn’t take them in a hand-to-hand fight. When the gang descended on them, he was ready. The Legate raised her blaster, firing quick, but these ones were quicker, and now they knew to evade. 

The Mandalorian stunned the first on his side, hit the second in the nose with the butt of his rifle before flipping it and stunning the second. The Legate hung close to him, but stayed clear of his weapons. She snagged a Rodian’s leg, and pulled it out from under him before shooting him in one quick motion. She’d had some kind of military training. 

There was a hard slice across his arm, and a sharp pain lanced through him like lightning. He turned, kicked, stunned a human fighter. 

The Mandalorian turned, fired the rifle. All motion ceased, the fighting paused, when everyone saw that the Trandoshan had been completely disintegrated, safe for his leathers. Golden embers floated away and settled. 

The second Klatooinian looked at his remaining partners, chest heaving. “Nobody said nothing about a Mando with a disruptor!” 

“Shut up!” 

The Legate fired, taking out the second Klatooinian and the other Zabrak, leaving the sole remaining human for the Mandalorian. 

She turned. “That’s a  _ disruptor _ rifle?” she demanded. 

He flipped it back over his shoulder, and was about to walk into the shop. Blood streaked down his arm, wetting his fresh clothes. A blaster shot just barely missed the beskar of his helmet, and he turned to see that the Legate had taken cover with the Child. Her keen eyes were looking everywhere. 

“SNIPER!” she called. 

The Mandalorian ducked, sneaking to where the Legate was. She snatched the edge of his cuirass, and said, “Mando, I’m a _sniper,_ I saw heat on Endor _._ 14CK. Give me that rifle!” 

He hesitated. 

Finally, he relented. 

He unclipped the strap, handed it over. She exchanged it for the Child, and with the grace of a seasoned professional, fitted the rifle against her shoulder. It wasn’t adjusted to her, she was a little thing, but she made due. 

“Just one, you think?” she asked. 

_ “Yeah.” _

She used the scope, eyed carefully, searching the windows. Once she found her target, the Mandalorian watched as she took a breath, breathed out, and fired. A cloak fell out of a window, followed by sparks, quiet as death. She lifted her head, looked at the gun. 

“This is an Amban sniper rifle,” she said. “How the hell did you get it?” 

“Custom, now let’s go.” 

The Legate stood, and the two of them went into the Mechanic’s shop. The Mechanic was hiding behind a tool rack. The Legate paid him, and they climbed back aboard the  _ Crest,  _ ascending and then flying off into the deep blue sky again. 

The Legate had slumped into the copilot’s chair, uncertain as to where else she should be. Now that things had quieted down, and the Child was occupied with the Legate’s shawl fringe, he had a minute to think. His arm ached. Bad. But no matter how bad it hurt, distance had to be put behind them and that planet. She hadn’t seen it, he didn’t think, and it was the arm farthest from her. 

The Legate was a good shot, but she was small and tired easy, though whether it was because she was out of shape or just a bad fighter, he couldn’t be sure. She’d been kind, and obeyed orders--mostly. He should have handed her the rifle sooner. 

_ “Thank you, Legate Silva,” _ the Mandalorian said. 

“For? Oh, for the bath? Oh, don’t even worry about it. I get it. I had a little one too.” 

_ “So you’ve said. Where is your child?”  _

The Legate was quiet for a long minute. He turned to look at her. She was staring at the Child in her arms. 

“He died,” she said quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dude I have an infant and a four year old this was just an incredibly self-indulgent chapter for me (except for the end just to clarify)


	4. The Devourer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Legate Atin is good with babies, cauterizers, and flirting.

The Razor Crest soared quietly through Hutt space. Down in the cabin, the Mandalorian could hear the gentle back-and-forth babbling of the Child and the Legate. He took a breath. It was… nice. Peaceful. Peace was strange for him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like it. He was clean under his armor, and still full from that meal. 

A few hours had passed as they neared a hyperspace run. The bleeding on his arm had mostly stopped, but the wound had to be cauterized and closed. 

The babbling went quiet. Not the suspicious quiet of something about to be broken or the kid about to get stuck in the vacc tube, but the still quiet of a sleeping Foundling. After a few minutes, he decided it was probably safe. 

Downstairs, he found them. Snuggled down in the bunk, with her jacket, boots, and trousers off, the Legate had curled up with the Child in the bunk. He was nuzzled into her breast, all still except for his breathing, which was even and deep. The Legate--Atin, her name was Atin--had put them to sleep upside-down in the bunk, so that her dark hair cascaded over the edge. Lush and curling, the Mandalorian’s good hand twitched with desire. How long had it been since he’d touched any part of anyone without gloves on? 

He found his cauterizing pen and sat down at the narrow galley table, and began the painful process of sealing the wound shut. It was hard to do on his own, though he was used to it. 

While trying to readjust to reach it easier across his cuirass, he burned himself, and hissed. The renewed pain made him groan, grit his teeth. The Legate raised her head, opening her eyes, looking around. 

She saw him, squinted, then said, “Mandalorian?” 

Once her vision had focused, she started trying to extricate herself from the Child’s grasp. 

_ “No, it’s fine--” _

“When did that happen?” she asked gently as she climbed delicately out of the bunk. She padded across the metal floor of the quarters, her bare feet silent and soft. She twisted her hair out of the way, tossing it behind her back. She was a mess of sensations he craved, and she did it so easily and unashamedly. She knelt beside him, reaching out for the cauterizing pen. 

“Give me that before you hurt yourself more.”

Atin carefully examined the wound with the light at the end of the pen. It was a messy cut that would leave a messy scar. 

_ “A human with a vibroknife, in that skirmish.”  _

She nodded. “I can tell vibroknife. That looks painful. Do you have any numbspray?” 

He sighed.  _ “I was hoping to be quick.” _

Atin raised an eyebrow. “Really? Quick? You can barely hold steady. Let me do this, and you sit there looking stoic and tough and pretend it doesn’t hurt. Sound good?” 

He stared at her. She began to grow uncertain, but was trying to play it off, keep it inside. She raised an eyebrow. His hand itched to touch it, run his calloused fingertip along the dark ridge of it. He struggled to keep his breathing level. 

_ “You know how to use it?”  _

She nodded. Clearly, the impulse to be sarcastic was hard to fight. “Yeah. I was a medic.”

_ “A medic and a sniper?”  _

“I pulled double duty. I couldn’t fight worth anything, still can’t, I’m sure you noticed. So I did what I could.”

_ “You rely heavily on your--ow,”  _ he grunted. She was spraying the wound with numbspray.  _ “On your blaster. But you’re clever with it.” _

She smiled. “High praise, coming from you.”

_ “I’m not that great a fighter.” _

“I didn’t say that,” she said, leaning in with the cauterizer. “You aren’t. But you are resourceful. And… efficient.” 

_ “Most people say ‘brutal’.”  _

“Well… most people wouldn’t be wrong. You fight like you fight for a living, Mandalorian.” 

Her chest fluttered a little, though she was trying to hide it. That, and the color of her face. The Legate’s steadying hand on the back of his arm was gentle, but firm. He knew it didn’t, but he still asked,  _ “Does that bother you?”  _

“It bothers me that we live in a galaxy where that’s a necessity. But I was raised in a warrior culture. The necessity of war was inescapable. And then as soon as my mother decided I was old enough, she allowed me to join the Alliance with her, and I learned to do what had to be done to secure justice.” 

He didn’t say aloud what he thought of her “justice.” Though he wanted to. He wanted to see her angry, really angry. He wanted to know what it looked like when she defended her ideals, see that flush grow hotter, burn brighter. 

_ “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were Mandalorian yourself.” _

Her face whipped up. His head tilted a little. She couldn’t read him. She searched for an expression, a clue. The helmet gave her nothing, but she was giving him everything. 

_ “You have a Mando’a name. You say you were raised in a warrior culture. You are unusually understanding of my religion.” _

“It’s called ‘cultural sensitivity’. And no, I’m not Mando’ade.”

She winced at her slip-up.

_ “Most beings just call us ‘Mandalorians’.” _

“I know, now shut up. I can’t do this if I’m flustered.”

_ “I’m flustering you?”  _ he asked. He hadn’t had this much fun in years. His face split into a grin he wasn’t used to.

Atin moved to apply the cauterizer pen, but paused. She switched it off, and set it down to rub her blushing face. She sighed,which turned into a groan, and again turned into a giggle. The Mandalorian watched her shoulders rise and fall. She dropped her hands, raised her head, and breathed out a sharp little huff. 

“You’re going to bleed to death if you do not shut up and let me do this.”

Composed, she picked up the cauterizer, and worked quickly. While she worked, the Mandalorian watched. And agonized. The itch to touch her back was nearly overwhelming. All he could think about was the feel of cool hair under his fingers, or of soft flesh, or hot blood under her cheeks. His mouth tingled, craving the feel of hers. Was it necessary for her to hold his arm that firmly? That fully? He wasn’t moving. Did she really need to sit that close? She’d already given him the closest thing to physical comfort he’d had in years, and now his gut was screaming, wanting more, like a spoiled child. 

Slowly, carefully, the Legate closed his wound with the cauterizer. Her eyes stayed focused on her work. She pulled her lips in, then bit her bottom lip, working it between her teeth. 

_ “So, Atin, where  _ are _ you from?”  _

She turned off the cauterizer, examining her work. 

“Mandalorian, I’m from the Outer Rim Territories. That’s all you need to know. You and I both know this partnership ends when we get to Nakadia and you get your money,” she said, her voice firm. “I have… a weakness for being flirted with, and you can’t get undressed, so all this ends with is me being very, very frustrated, and you being amused by it. So stop.” 

_ “I wasn’t aware I was flirting with you. Or frustrating you.”  _

She stood up, put the pen down. 

“I know that you know that you were. Are.  _ Stop. _ ” 

He had to stop. He could not sustain this anymore, not without putting himself into territory that would compromise himself, his beliefs. What was it about this one woman that was so dangerous? The Mandalorian knew he had a hard time thinking things through. He shot from the hip. But this was different, it was like he  _ couldn’t  _ think. 

The Legate sat down. It wasn’t like she could get away from him. This was his ship. It felt like their day together had already been the longest of Mando’s life, and yet the shortest. 

_ “I’m… I know I have to stop. I just… can’t.”  _

The Legate sighed. “I don’t actually want you to.” 

The Mandalorian was used to being considered terrifying, impressive, or evil. He could deal with being a selfish bastard who captured good folks to drag back to their punishments. He had gotten used to the lack of gentle softness, sweet eyes on him. Now it had happened more than once since he had taken the Foundling in. Everything was different. And he had no idea how to react. All he knew was that his hand was still twitchy and itchy, and he was still wishing he was someone else, just then. A man who could kiss Atin, and hold her, touch her, seduce her. 

He slipped off his glove. He offered Atin his hand. She smiled, blushed, glanced down. 

“Generally, I make people buy me dinner before I get all hot and bothered for them.” 

He felt his gut flip. His heart pounded like a much younger man’s. 

_ “Are… you…?” _

She raised an eyebrow. “Why, Mr. Mandalorian, are you blushing under your beskar?” 

Atin laid her hand in his, and a frisson of electricity shot up his arm. He held her ink-stained fingers, maybe too tightly. She gripped him back. Did she feel that too, or was that just him? 

There was a jolt. The ship shook. The Mandalorian looked up. He slipped his glove back on, flexing his fingers so it fit properly. 

_ “Now what?”  _ he sighed. 

A dirty yellow light filtered down through the hatch. Atin stared at it, standing up. She looked up the ladder and out the cockpit viewport. 

“I think… I think we’re inside a carrier ship.” 

She hurried over to the bunk compartment, pressed her fist on the button that closed the door. 

There was a pounding on the side of the ship. 


	5. The Duchess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Legate Atin's hidden past comes back to haunt her.

The hydraulics whined as the hatch of the  _ Razor Crest _ was forced open. Legate Silva snatched her trousers, pulled them on under her dress, and looked at the Mandalorian. They both listened. The engines had gone quiet. 

He climbed up into the cockpit. Remote control had been taken of the ship, and he hadn’t even been aware. He’d been so busy flirting he hadn’t noticed. If the Armorer had seen, she’d probably have bashed his head in. 

Leaping back down, he turned to the weapons cabinet and restocked his bullets, grabbed a fresh blaster, tossed one to Atin. He attached the rising phoenix to the back of his armor, the new weight strange but comforting. 

“If they’re here for me, leave,” she commanded. “If they’re here for you, we fight. You get the kid out, I blow up the ship and you get to an escape pod.” 

_ “Sounds like a plan, _ ” he said, knowing he sounded a little strangled. The Foundling, his foundling. 

_ “COME OUT, COME OUT, LITTLE DUCHESS!” _

The Legate went pale, and grabbed the Mandalorian’s cape, pulling him down to her level. “Mando!” 

_ “What?!”  _ he barked. When he turned to face her, he’d never seen this kind of alarm or terror on her face. 

“I know whose ship this is. You… you’re free from the deal. You’ll still get paid. This guy… he’ll kill the Child, and you can’t let that happen. Do not resist when they come and take me.” 

_ “What?” _

When the hatch was open, men charged in. They wore many faces, Klatooinian and human and indistinguishable because of cover. But they all wore the same symbol, and when the Legate saw it, she looked at the Mandalorian. 

“Get out of here as fast as you can,” she said, “Take the kid and run!” she added, as she was grabbed. The Mandalorian drew his blaster, was about to start a fight, but the Legate shouted, “Don’t! Mando, stop! Go to Cassius Agrebor, on Nakadia, he’ll get you the money!” 

She was dragged from the ship, fighting the whole time. Atin was forced to her knees, and the Mandalorian watched as a man with far too much swagger approached her. Mando had seen him, once or twice, in his line of work. Cache Saxon, who was considered dar’manda by everyone in the Mandalorian’s covert. Ignorant of his heritage, and vicious beyond reason. 

“Well, well, if it isn’t little Atin. Looking more and more like your mother every day.”

Atin glared up at him, snarling and fighting against the hands holding her down. 

“Cache,”she spat. 

“Heard you were working on a new project. Came to see what all the fuss was about.” 

He turned to see the Mandalorian, smiled. “Pardon me for all the trouble, sir. I’ll be relieving you of your passenger. You due to get paid?” 

The Mandalorian didn’t answer. 

Cache smiled when he got a good look at the Mandalorian. “That’s quite a bit of beskar, sir. One might wonder where you got it worked so nicely. Hard to find fellow Mandalorians in these troubled times, especially armorers skilled in the beskar.”

Cache turned to Atin. “Clever of you, girl, to seek out one of the Mando’ade to get you where you needed to go. Too bad you didn’t make it there, though that’s no fault of his.” 

Atin said, “Just let him go, Cache. This is between you and me.” 

“It is! You’re right, little Atin. And you are a very, very valuable little asset. I think I’ll charge… double what I initially planned. After all, not many Kryzes running around anymore.”

Atin looked at the Mandalorian, her eyes pleading.  _ Go. Go. Go. Get the kid and go.  _

Shooting their way out wasn’t an option. They already had Atin, and she couldn’t fight worth a damn. The name Kryze rang a bell, but he was rattled, trying not to shake. All he could think of was his Foundling, the terror that they would decide to board the  _ Crest _ after all. 

“I wonder,” Cache began. “How you happened to find a Mandalorian who didn’t mind your particular situation. Seeing as how you’re a blood traitor and all.” 

The Mandalorian froze with his hand on the button to close the ramp. Everything clicked. Atin’s eyes went wide. Anguish was written into every line on her face. “No, don’t--”

“Sir, if you weren’t aware, this little thing, this little duchess is dar’manda. No longer Mandalorian.” 

“It’s not like that!” she shouted. “I didn’t have a choice!” 

“You had a choice! You chose to live dar’manda rather than die Mando’ade!”

“And whose fault was it that I had to make that choice? Who took my mother’s armor? I chose to live to fight another day. Another dead rebel wasn’t going to win our freedom!” she screeched back. 

“You rejected the resol’nare!” 

“I did not,” she snarled back, but it was a desperate snarl, the anger of one who had been cornered. “I rejected the idea that armor was more important than lives! I chose to save my detachment and protect the Rebellion!” 

She pushed and pulled against the hands that held her. He had to  _ go.  _ The Mandalorian hit the button to close the ramp, his gut rolling. Kryze, Kryze, what was that name…? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This villain is a straight up plot device y'all IDGAF this is usually where I lose it with a lot of fanfictions


	6. The Fury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What exactly is this Core-worlder politician hiding? 
> 
> Mando goes back for her, but things become complicated.

The Mandalorian gently picked up the Foundling. He set him in the bunk compartment , and said,  _ “I’ll be right back. You stay here, and don’t move.” _

The Child cooed, and the Mandalorian closed the compartment door.His weapons were already stocked, he was already loaded down with adrenaline. The familiar surge of blood to his muscles woke him up. He refilled the flamethower canister in his gauntlet. And all the while he was free to think. 

_ Dar’manda.  _

The word echoed in his helmet like a horrible bell toll. To be dar’manda was to lose your Way. To have removed your helmet, or had it removed by an enemy. To have betrayed your covert, to have not lived by the Six Actions. 

The dilapidated transport hadn’t moved. Going by the comms he’d intercepted, they were waiting for news to come back to them about the ransom. Somehow, he had a feeling neither the Republic nor whatever was left of Clan Kryze was going to answer the calls in any kind of time. 

Kryze. That name had lived in whispers in the Tribe. It lived in snarls in the memories of what few Mandalorians had remained--still remained. Not only was she definitely Mandalorian, her family name lived among the most hated leaders he knew of. But also… of one of the most loved. The last Mand’alor was Clan Kryze. 

Well, dar’manda or not, he had a job to do. She’d tried to release him in fear, but he wasn’t just going to show up and expect credits for nothing. 

He piloted in quietly and carefully, using the signal jamming features on the  _ Razor Crest _ to scramble the landing signals and get in undetected. The small circular hatch opened, and so did the one on the transport. There was a dingy yellow light coming from inside it. He jumped down, landed on his feet, the echo of his boots filling the cavernous corridors. 

Quiet blaster fire reached him. Well, seemed a good place to start. 

Heading down the corridor towards the blaster fire, he passed by a large holding room. When he looked inside, he saw open, empty cages. Freshly empty, going by the look of them. 

More blaster fire echoed down the halls. The Mandalorian turned his head, listened. There was a scream. Not Atin’s, at least not that he thought. 

He hurried down the halls, his blaster drawn. The feeling of being watched from the shadows clung to him like a bad smell. Another shriek rang out, and when he looked, he saw blaster fire down a side corridor. He heard the grunting of a fight, before a Trandoshan fell down dead, his own blaster sliding away down the metal grate floor. 

And then there was Atin. 

She wasn’t trapped, she wasn’t even seriously injured. She was limping a little, and her arm was bleeding, but she seemed more or less fine. The Mandalorian let out a breath. 

_ “Atin!”  _

She turned her head instantly, staring at him like he was a dream. 

“Mandalorian?” 

Like it was his name. Which, to her, it was. She walked towards him, then jogged, her pace uncertain. 

“You… you came back for me?” 

_ “You really think some Core-worlder is going to hand me 30,000 credits for not doing my job?”  _

“Clearly, you don’t know Core-worlders very well,” she said, raising her eyebrow. “Listen, I have something I need to finish here.” She was about to turn and charge back down the hall, but she paused. “Um… so, I think… we’ve got a lot to discuss. You probably… well… look, this is all really complicated--”

_ “Can we talk about this later if I promise I’ll hear you out?”  _ he said sharply. 

“Yes. Great. Cool. Perfect. Also, one more thing.” 

She grabbed his cuirass and pulled him down to her level, and planted a big, hard kiss to the cold beskar forehead of his helmet. Resting her warm skin against it, she said, “Thank you, Mandalorian.” 

Atin turned and ran down the halls, her limp no longer holding her back. Followed her, their boots loud against the metal grate floor. In the shadows, he could hear things moving. Whatever had been released from those empty cages was hunting them.

_ “Do you know--” _

“Fyrnocks. Stay sharp.” 

_ “Fyrnocks?” _ he asked, genuinely incredulous. 

“Yeah, and they’re mean. I think they’re hungry. This way,” she said, taking a right at the next juncture. 

It led them to the living quarters, and she pulled an ID chip out of her pocket. She held it to the door, and it beeped, before opening and letting them in. There was a loud crash, a Rodian appeared. Atin shot him between his wide eyes, a trick shot that Mando would later remember to be impressed by. 

“This way,” she said. 

There was a galley. It was a mess of weapons and armor pieces, and actual mess. The smell came through his helmet and hit him like a stray bantha. Atin raised her dress’s neckline to cover her nose. 

“God, I hate these jerks,” she sighed. 

Passing through the galley, she walked up to an office, presented the ID chip again. The sensor blinked red, and she rolled her eyes. Raising her blaster, she shot the door panel, and it opened. 

Blaster fire immediately came flying out, pinging against the Mandalorian’s beskar armor. He pushed Atin out of the way, and she took cover, before Cache came charging out with a tazer staff and a satchel. 

The Mandalorian struggled, but Cache was a skilled fighter and he was still injured. Cache had him by the arm, and had a vibroknife in one hand. Mando was able to twist away in time to feel and hear the knife buzz against the back of his armor. 

Cache threw the Mandalorian, but the mess in the room meant that the Mandalorian tripped over wiring and fell. As Cache ran out, Atin chased him with blaster fire. 

“I couldn’t get a good shot in,” she said as she hurried over, helped him to his feet. “He kept you in front.” 

They followed Cache. “I don’t care if he lives or dies--actually, that’s a lie” she said as she paused at an intersection and listened. On his helmet, he used the thermal vision function, and saw a trail of slight warmth and a body heading down the halls. 

“That way,” he said, pointing to the left. 

“I really want him dead, but I’ll settle for alive if we can get that satchel. He’s got my mother’s helmet.” 

_ “I don’t want to diminish your mother’s importance or anything, but is that actually--” _

“Trust me, it is.” 

There was a hiss, a rumble. The corridor led them to a series of escape pods, one of which had just disengaged. Atin ran to the porthole to see the pod drifting away toward the planet below. Her heavy breathing fogged it, and in an angry rush, she wiped the condensation away. Her teeth gritted, and she slammed her fist against the hatch. 

There was a quiet moment, where the Mandalorian didn’t know what to say or do. 

_ “Are we going to go get him?”  _

“There is a whole ass planet down there!” shouted Atin as she began to pace. “A whole planet. There’s no way we’d find him before he found transport offworld.” 

_ “So what do you want to do?”  _

“Scream and drink.” 

Under his helmet, he raised his eyebrows. 

_ “What are we actually going to do?”  _

Atin sighed, pressed the meat of her palm against her forehead. The angry quivering of her muscles went still. 

“Where’s the baby?” she asked. 

_ “On the Crest.”  _

“Alone?” 

The Mandalorian was fairly certain he was about to get a lecture, but instead, she just said, “I want to smell your baby. Let’s go.” 

There was a growl. Both Mandalorians stopped, looked to the shadows. Sleek, dark predators stared at them, their eyes bright in the shadows. Atin said, “Oh. I forgot about those.” 

The Mandalorian slipped his rifle off of his back and primed it. 

_ “Get behind me,”  _ he said.  _ “Cover my back.”  _

Atin did as he ordered. She kept her blaster primed. 

When the first fyrnock came at them, the Mandalorian was able to stun it. It flew back, hitting the wall, but others were still encouraged by the bravery of the first. 

_ “How many are there?”  _

“10, I think.” 

She took aim, fired. Another fyrnock fell. The Mandalorian was quiet. Once he was certain the path was clear, he began to move through the corridors. He kept his rifle in his hand, ready to spring. Sweat beaded under his helmet and in his armor, wicked away by his clothes. 

There was a blast behind him and the thud of a dead fyrnock. 

_ “Were you able to take out Saxon’s thugs?”  _

“Easily,” she said. “His standards are much lower than they used to be.” 

_ “You’re limping. _ ” 

There was a long pause. 

“That’s because I tripped and hit my knee.” 

_ “Seriously?”  _

“You know what, shut up, I’m a--” she paused, before firing off another shot, “A legislator, not a soldier!” 

_ “Are they all behind us?”  _

“Fyrnocks are ambush predators. This may have been a bad call.” 

_ “I’m starting to wonder.”  _

He saw another in the shadows ahead. He raised the rifle, fired. Embers drifted to the ground. He reloaded quickly. They made their way back to the  _ Razor Crest  _ slowly. There was a long streak of red where a fresh body had been dragged to the shadows. The Mandalorian prayed he’d been smart enough to close the door on his way out. 

They reached the hatch, and he knelt, giving Atin a boost up. She climbed in, and he looked around as she turned, offered her hand. As he was reaching up, the last fyrnock appeared. 

Dread balled up in his gut as he heard the growl. Atin looked down, held out her hand. “Hurry!” 

As he grabbed her hand, the beast leapt, grabbed him, ripped his hand out of hers and almost pulled her out of the ship. He heard his rifle hit the ground, clatter away. She gasped, cried, “Mando!” 

The fyrnock was heavy and had his arms pinned. He couldn’t get to his blaster or his gauntlet. The fyrnock was trying to pull his cuirass off, scratching and snarling at him, tearing at his clothes. He couldn’t writhe out, and his kicks seemed ineffective. 

And then it wasn’t there anymore. 

When he looked up, sat up, Atin was there. She had this look on her face that he didn’t understand. Like a cold fury had washed over her, and all that was left was… well, he knew what was left. The calm, precise anger that fueled a lot killing. 

She used the rifle to help her stand, and walked over to him. He took her hand, and she helped him up. 

“You alright?” she asked. 

_ “I’ve been worse,”  _ he said.  _ “You?”  _

Atin didn’t answer. She just turned, walked back to the hatch, and slipped the rifle over her shoulder. Jumping, she managed to catch the edge, and haul herself up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow have you guys heard "Atomic Number" by neko case? That is some *chef's kiss*
> 
> Also do you guys need a guide to the Mando'a words I'll be putting in or nah, because I'm pretty sure a lot of us are semi-fluent in Mando'a thanks to the hard work of significantly better fanfic writers than me


	7. The Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth comes out at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I need you all to acknowledge that ShadowXIII saved this fanfiction because y'all almost got some barely coherent nonsense and instead they pulled my head out of my ass and stopped me from being scared of going wildly off canon. Hello my name is Kieran and I have anxiety.
> 
> Also, if you are interested, I have a playlist for this fic: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/22VSqhAFJ1gk2axOyTpo56?si=gRHW7cMwRx-J-lyGDc86dQ

The Legate turned down the comm system. She’d spent the last hour making calls and sending messages to tell people she had escaped and that she was fine. She left him out of it, but no one sounded surprised that she seemed to have done so alone. 

She was sitting slumped in the pilot’s seat. Her hair tumbled loose around her shoulders. The Mandalorian leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. Atin sighed, her head resting against her fingers. Neither wanted to be the first to speak, to break the awkward silence that had settled itself comfortably between them. 

The Child toddled up to Atin. When she picked him up, she snuggled against him. She paused, looking down, and dug into his clothes. She found the pendant he’d given the child when he’d taken him in as a Foundling. She ran her thumb over the engraved beskar mythosaur. This was the last straw for Atin, who set the Child down and left the Pilot’s seat, climbing quickly down the ladder to pace up and down the length of the ship. 

She was trying to compose herself, breathing slowly and holding her hands out in front of her. Problem was, she was losing it. When she breathed, it was ragged. If he looked in her eyes, he knew he’d see tears. Putting her hands on her hips, tipping her head back, Atin looked as fragile as he’d ever seen anyone. It twisted inside him, his heart aching. 

“I guess I owe you that explanation.”

_ “We did kind of have a deal,”  _ he said, helping the Foundling down and setting him gently on the floor, where he waddled off to go find something to stick in his mouth. 

Atin sat on one of the few seats. “Do you have caf in this thing?” 

_ “Atin.”  _

She growled and stood back up. “I don’t want to tell you! Because when I tell you, it’s going to change everything you think of me. I don’t even know what you think of me because you never take that thing off!”

_ “Of course I don’t. Why is yours off?”  _

Atin stared at him, her eyebrows raised. There was a long beat before she spoke. “Oh my God, do you seriously never take it off?” 

Confusion spun out in his mind. 

“I’m never going to see your face, am I?” she asked quietly. “You’re one of… oh.” 

She pressed her hand against her nose and mouth. Her other hand leaned against her ample hip, a fist against the soft cloth of her dress. Again, that itch to touch her made his fingers twitch. She looked at him, trying to read him.

“My mother was Bo-Katan Kryze.” 

The Mandalorian felt his legs go weak. He sat down. He very, very desperately wanted to take his helmet off and rub the exhaustion from his face. 

“I’m one of the last of my clan,” she said. “Not many of us made it out of the Great Purge or the years that followed. The only reason I did was because of Death Watch.” 

_ “I was saved by Death Watch.”  _

“Yeah, I know. You’re Tribe, aren’t you?” 

_ “Yeah _ .” 

She heaved a huge sigh. 

_ “I don’t get it, how… I didn’t even know Bo-Katan had children.”  _

“Well, duh, she was the last Mand’alor, the last known Mandalorian wielder of the Darksaber. I was valuable, at least in the eyes of some people. Closest thing we get to royalty. My life would have been in danger.”

_ “You’re a pacifist.” _

“Um… I mean, kind of? I never really agreed with the either/or approach, y’know? My aunt Satine had a point, but my mother also had a point… like, our culture is our… everything. But conquering everything that ever was for the glory of Mandalore? Nah.”

Everything suddenly felt like it made perfect sense, and no sense at all. 

_ “What made you dar’manda?”  _

She took a breath. “After Endor. My mother had let me join the Rebellion. I was a sniper, a very good one. But she was attacked at the same time as I was fighting. I knew what was happening. Our covert… well, I knew she wouldn’t have wanted me to leave my detachment on Endor to help her. I had a job to do.” 

He listened, feeling sick. 

“Moff Gideon had been hunting her for years after the Night of a Thousand Tears, and there were… well, there were enemies everywhere. Honestly, I think I might have been the only reason she was pushing on at that point. That and the few people in our covert. But… well, Mando’ade are good at finding one another, and Cache Saxon wanted my mother’s head. He got it. He took her helmet, let the Imperials take the rest of her beskar. The covert blamed me, because I wasn’t there to help. I was off fighting for the Republic, rather than staying with my own people. I wanted to be a senator rather than a Mand’alor.” 

A long silence passed between them. 

“So, are you going to drop me off somewhere?” 

_ “I’m going to ask you to stay here and do not look in the cockpit. Look after the child. If there’s an emergency, scream.”  _

She nodded. 

He climbed the ladder, closed the door. The small button on the bottom of his helmet clicked, the mechanics hissed a little, and he slipped his helmet off. He pulled his gloves off, tossed them onto the pilot’s seat and set the helmet down on them gently. He ran his fingers through his clean hair, rubbed the exhaustion from his eyes and face until his skin tingled and sparks danced across his eyes. 

He needed to find the Armorer. Tell her what he’d found. Who he’d found. 

_ I’m never going to see your face, am I?  _

She’d sounded so genuinely sad. Like it broke her heart a little bit to hear that she could never see his face. He’d seen lovers touch each other’s faces. At the time, the gesture had seemed so strange, so intimate as to be obscene. His mother had touched his face in his childhood, but no one had done so since he had become a foundling. That wasn’t to be him, and it had been fine. But now, he wasn’t so sure. 

The Mandalorian had known that his faith wasn’t unshakeable, he’d known it probably hadn’t always been the way it was. But it was feeling a little more shakeable today. The sooner he could get the Legate back to Nakadia, the better. 

But first, Cache Saxon had to be found. If any honor was there for Atin, it lied in that helmet. 

Down in the hold, he could hear her. She was holding the Foundling, bouncing him and singing. 


	8. The Cantina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search for Cache Saxon begins... badly.

Atin sat in the back seat. The Child was in his bed, happily dozing. They were entering the orbit of the planet below. They had been quiet for some time now. Atin had fixed her hair, put on her coat. She sat straight up, with her shoulders back. Keen-eyed. Waiting. 

“So… do you have a name?” she asked. 

He glanced back to her. 

Should he give it? 

“I can keep calling you ‘Mandalorian,” if you prefer. I would understand.” 

He let the silence sit. The Legate read through her notes. She must have been getting close to finishing that bill. Her legs were crossed at the ankle. He was trying not to think. Trying not to think about who she was, or what her bare legs had looked like, or how she breathed in the heat of a fight. 

_ “It’s Din.”  _

She must have given up on learning it, because she looked surprised he’d spoken. “I’m sorry?” 

_ “Din Djarin.” _

“That’s your name?” 

_ “Yeah. But don’t go throwing it around.” _

Atin leaned back in the chair. “This is unfair.”

_ “What?”  _

“Your name is hot. Your voice is hot. Your hand is hot. I’m willing to bet you’re hot under there. Are you hot? I bet you’re handsome as anything.” 

_ “I don’t know about that.”  _

He felt as red and raw as if he’d been slapped around. He fiddled with the controls, trying to clear off that nervous energy. 

“Have you even seen your face?” 

_ “No. No… no living being has seen my face since I took the Creed. You really don’t… ever cover your face? Never have?”  _

“No! That’s  _ old  _ Mando religion, man. I mean, I know the songs for all that, but I didn’t even know there were any Mando’ade that were that conservative, like… that’s dedicated.”

After a couple of minutes passed, he said,  _ “What songs?”  _

“Oh, y’know.  _ Dha Werda Verda,  _ the Warrior’s Mask, the Night of a Thousand Tears, all those. I wrote them down too, I can give them to you for your Foundling.”

_ “I’ve never heard of some of those. He’s not old enough to train. He… he might never be, at least in my lifetime.”  _

“Really? Why not?” 

_ “He’s 50 years old. I’m already in my 40’s. ”  _

Atin stared at the child. “You’re joking. He’s just a baby!” 

_ “His species ages very slowly.”  _

“Huh. A 50-year-old baby. I dated one of those once.” Din turned and looked at her. She shrugged. “Dating is a very loose term that more or less describes a wild night on Canto Bight. Anyway, you can still sing him the songs. It would probably make him pretty happy.” 

_ “You know all of them, though?”  _

“Oh, yeah. That’s how our culture survives. We learn it. We teach it to our young. Mandalore may be gone, but we aren’t. You’re a testament to that. My mother would cry to have seen you.” 

There was another pause. 

“Wait, you’re in your 40s?” 

_ “Yeah.” _

Stunned silence. 

“Lookin’ good, buddy.” 

Din wondered if he could actually die of blood loss from this kind of childish blushing. He was a Mandalorian hunter, a warrior, a grown man. But he still felt himself fidget and pink under the Legate’s eyes. He was grateful for his hidden face. His hands trembled. 

Flying low over the planet’s surface, he looked for a good spot to land that wasn’t too far from the only outpost of any size he had seen on the scans. It was a good place to start looking for Saxon, since he’d have to start there to find refuge, and if he had a rough landing, which he likely had, it was where he would go to treat his injuries. 

“Look,” said Atin, pointing out broken trees next to the shallow river. 

The Mandalorian swung the  _ Crest  _ around to take a closer look. Sure enough, freshly broken trees and a streak in the river’s mud lead to a silvery escape pod that had struggled to make it through this planet’s dense, hyper-oxygenated atmosphere in one piece. 

He landed nearby, and Atin stood up.

_ “Wait.” _

She paused, looked at him. 

_ “What do you intend to do with Saxon if you catch him?”  _

Atin looked into his visor, then turned her eyes down to his cuirass. 

“I… I don’t know. Are you going to tell me that killing and vengeance and all that are wrong?” 

_ “Oh, definitely not. I don’t know that it’s the right choice for you, but I’m not the boss of you. Just… don’t do something stupid out of anger. Don’t catch it if you don’t know what to do with it,”  _ he advised.  _ “Either take him out or take what you need and leave, but don’t go in without a plan.”  _

Atin considered. 

“Will you help me?” she asked, looking up at him. 

_ “I cannot endanger my foundling, and you still haven’t decided whether or not to kill him.” _

“Clan Saxon betrayed us all. Cache Saxon is a hut’uun who probably deserves to die. I’ve killed… a lot of people in the last 12 hours or so. But… to be judge and jury? What would you do?”

_ “It doesn’t matter--” _

“I’m serious,” she said. “As a  _ buir,  _ as a father, as a  _ verd _ . What would you do?” 

He glanced at the foundling. His large ear twitched, listening for Din’s voice, even in his sleep. He knew exactly what he was going to say. What exactly she needed to hear. 

_ “I would kill anyone who harmed my clan.”  _

***

This small outpost was turning out to be a maze. Like most small outposts, it had cropped up more or less by accident, which meant the buildings had been thrown up as close to the others as possible in whatever arrangement was least inconvenient. It was becoming a problem for the two of them as they wandered through town with the child in tow. 

“Just so you know,” she said as they walked through the bazaar. “I’m sorry, if I sounded judgemental about the helmet thing. Like, I’m not… I’m curious. Like, I admire that kind of dedication, just… no, I’m not going there. I’m not going to say anything. You’re a religious man. I get that. I’m getting it.” 

_ “This is the Way. But I… didn’t know there was another way.” _

“I’m no expert. I mean, I guess I am, kind of. But… we do what we think is right to survive. I just… if you’ve never taken it off in front of anyone else, how are you supposed to get married? Not even get married, how are you supposed to do anything… else?” 

_ “Your questions are actually going to kill me, you know that?”  _ he said, as he turned hot red under his armor. 

“I shouldn’t have asked,” she said, also turning red. Finally, she’d gone too far even for her own sensibilities. “I… sometimes don’t know when to shut my mouth.” 

_ “I can tell.”  _

They ducked into the local cantina.  _ “Let me do the asking,”  _ he said. 

Atin raised her eyebrows, then rolled her eyes. “Alright, Mr. Tough Guy.” 

He walked up to the bar, keeping his eye out for the two of them. They settled ata small table in the corner, where Atin handed the child a small handful of dentapicks and showed him how to stack them into a square tower. 

Thedroid at the bar acknowledged him.

“How may I serve you?” it asked. 

_ “I’m looking for a guy who may have passed through town. Carrying a big satchel, about yea high. Looks like a smug bastard.”  _

__ In the very corner of his vision, he saw something gold and still. He ignored it, deciding to wait until it moved to worry about it. He noticed Atin get up though, and the pale look on her face as she gathered up the child. 

“Please excuse my husband, bartender. Two spotchkas if you don’t mind.” 

When the droid turned, the Legate touched Mando’s arm gently and leaned in. 

“We have to leave  _ now,”  _ she said. With her eyes, she pointed to the gold thing he had ignored. But when he looked, he wished he hadn’t ignored it at all. 

The Armorer was there. Two Mandalorians, seen in one place. His heart pounded, his gut rolled. No, no,  _ no.  _ They had been noticed. It was too late. Once Atin got her drink, she said, “I’m going to start a distraction, you scoot on out of here with the kid.” 

She shoved the Foundling into his arms, and as he left the bar, she picked a random hard-headed bystander, and smashed her glass over his head. “That’s for breaking my heart, you dead-headed Devaronian jerk!” 

The cantina exploded. A town on edge, and a bunch of jerks just waiting for a fight to break out meant that the cantina was a tinderbox of pent-up energy. In the alley behind the cantina, he found the Armorer already waiting. 

_ “Were we seen?”  _

_ “I don’t think anyone saw us long enough to realize it. She’s a quick thinker, for a laandur’ika.”  _

_ “She’s no laandur, she’s Mando too.”  _

The pause passed in which Din knew the Armorer was considering his words. Usually, when he said anything, she was quiet for just a beat. She didn’t underthink her responses. Barely a moment passed by before Atin appeared around the back, watching over her shoulder for followers. She was breathing heavily, and smiling. 

“That was so much fun. I haven’t had that much fun since my first ewok rave. You ever been to an ewok rave?” she asked as she approached. She noticed the Armorer, and said, “Hey, guys, don’t you think we should maybe get the hell out of sight?” 

_ “This laandur’ika is Mandalorian?”  _ asked the Armorer.

Atin smacked Din’s beskar. Hard. Her fist had to have hurt. “What the hell? You weren’t supposed to  _ tell  _ anyone.” 

_ “She’ll understand. She’s my leader. She forged my armor. She leads the Tribe.” _

Atin turned blank white in fury. 

“We will have this discussion later,” she said. “In the meantime, I don’t think we should stay in town unless you know somewhere safe?” she asked the Armorer. “This backwater skug hole closes down at sunset, and that fight means we probably won’t get far looking for Saxon. Besides which, I’m just exhausted.” 

_ “Out of town is probably best. I wasn’t planning on being here for more than a day or so. Is your ship nearby?”  _ the Armorer asked. 

_ “It’s about an hour’s hike outside of town.”  _

_ “Very well,”  _ said the Armorer.  _ “You two go on ahead, I’ll follow.”  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly this is just a lot of dialogue. I'm feeling some dialogue ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Come chill with me on Tumblr maybe? adamantlykieran.tumblr.com
> 
> Also I use mandoa.org for the Mando'a? Because I'm lazy? Idk.


	9. The Betrayed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din made a mistake... and he's about to make more.

The Foundling was already asleep by the time they got back to the  _ Crest _ . He was swaddled in blue, his big ears tucked away to keep them warm. Din set him on the bunk and watched him breathe for a few minutes. He considered that they needed to eat something, but he had ration packs and Atin had snacks in her bag. She’d eat if she was hungry. He could sneak away and grab a bite. 

Atin and the Armorer were sitting just outside, speaking. He’d sat in the same arrangement with her a hundred times, just across from one another, knees parallel, eyes locked. He was relieved. If the Armorer was okay, then the Tribe would live on. Whoever was left in the covert would rally around her. 

Atin was shivering. 

He got the feeling that it wasn’t the cold that had her shaking so hard. But she kept her chin up, her shoulders square. Being afraid wasn’t what the Armorer would hate. It was showing that fear, letting it own her. 

_ “You tell me that your covert abandoned you after the death of your mother.” _

“Yes.” 

_ “And your name was made dar’manda?”  _

Atin nodded. 

The Armorer was quiet. Eventually, she said,  _ “There is… much to consider here. Obviously, it isn’t up to us alone. A Mando that has lived in line with the Six Actions would join the manda and be considered honorable after their death. However, you do not wear armor--” _

“I do not wear armor that can be seen,” interrupted Atin. 

_ “I don’t take your meaning.”  _

“My girdle is durasteel-lined. My boots are durasteel-toed. This coat is treated gaberwool. I’m not wearing  _ Mandalorian  _ armor, but I’m armored nonetheless.” 

The Armorer’s head tipped to the side to indicate she found this information interesting. 

_ “That is an interesting interpretation.” _

Atin smiled. 

When night rolled around, Din knew he needed sleep as badly as the others. The Armorer, still a little shaken, opted to sleep outside of the ship, where she couldn’t be confined by steel walls. That lead to finding accomodations for Atin and himself. This was… tricky. 

_ “I can take the kid, sleep in the cockpit,”  _ he said.  _ “You can take the bunk.”  _

“I think whoever gets the bunk should get the kid too. Seems fair, it’s more comfortable. You take the cockpit, so you can take your helmet off,” she said as she pulled a thick stack of blankets out of a cabinet for the Armorer and him. He hadn’t even know how she knew those were there, because he’d forgotten about them. 

Her tone was clipped. She was still angry. But even angry, she still cared about his comfort. 

_ “Atin--” _

“Fuck off.” 

She walked out of the ship, exchanged a few words with the Armorer, who nodded in response, then looked up the gangway at him. He got the distinct impression of a raised eyebrow. When Atin came back aboard, she pressed the button to raise the gangway, and that was when he knew he was about to get yelled at. 

Atin turned. Her arms were crossed. Well, he’d wanted to see her angry. He was getting what he wanted. 

“Do you mind telling me what the actual hell you were thinking, telling her I was Mando?” 

_ “I was thinking--” _

“That was a rhetorical question, I don’t actually give a damn what you thought.” 

_ “Atin--” _

“Stop saying my name, you oversized tin can, it’s making it harder to yell at you!”

He closed the bunk door, and crossed his arms.  _ “I don’t understand why you’re so angry. _ ”

“You don’t? You seriously don’t?” she snapped. “I am angry with you because you went blurting out what I was to someone I didn’t know without my permission! Advertising my shame to the whole galaxy, or at the very least, someone respectable, so you could earn brownie points with Mom!” 

_ “She’s not--” _

“You are not getting one word in edgewise in this conversation, buddy. You betrayed my trust! You betrayed  _ me _ !” 

The silence in the ship was deafening. It threatened to eat him whole. Atin’s chest was heaving. Her eyes were bright, glistening. He wasn’t sure whether she was going to cry or yell more. His heart was racing, muscles primed for a fight. 

“I am… lost. I lost everything at Endor, and then lost it again after my son died. I’ve gone through some of the worst things that a person, that a  _ Mando _ , can go through, and I made it out alive, but I am chewed up and worse for wear,” she said, barely keeping her voice together. Those tears spilled over, and Din felt himself going soft. “I trusted you to keep that to yourself.”

_ “She deserved to know the truth, to know that there were others, alive.” _

“Maybe so, but I wish you’d let me get that far on my own. Actually meet her, decide if I wanted her to know! When I’m done here, we go to Nakadia, you get your money. End of business.”

Din flexed his hands, took a breath. 

_ “I’m sorry.” _

“Yeah, well, me too.” 

There was a long silence. Atin sat down, sighed. All the fight had gone out of her. She was fully exhausted. The adrenaline began to drain out of him, leaving him aching. 

“Please go to bed,” she said. “I’ll yell at you more in the morning.” 

_ “No. You won’t.”  _

She looked up at him. She could tell by his tone that he was serious. He wasn’t sure if he was threatening her, or if he was reassuring himself. He climbed the ladder to the cockpit, and closed the hatch door. 

***

Sleep wasn’t happening. Din laid on the cockpit floor, in the pilot’s seat with the back reclined and his feet on the dash--which he rarely did, but then again, he rarely didn’t have his own bed. 

He watched the clock tick down. He should have been able to sleep. But as dawn drew closer, he couldn’t stop thinking. His blood still ran hot in his veins, and guilt was eating at him. The visor of his helmet stared at him. He could see his dark skin and mess of brown hair in the reflective surface. 

An idea hit him. It was a very, very bad one. Forbidden. If it went wrong, he would… he would be ruined. He would be dar’manda, no longer Mandalorian. 

This was stupid. Ridiculous. He wouldn’t do it. NO. It was against the Creed, against everything he was. 

It wasn’t against her creed. It wasn’t against who she was. He couldn’t give her his face. But… he could give her his voice. 

Carefully, climbing down the ladder, he made sure the coast was clear. When he hit the button on the bunk door, it slid open. He heard the quiet breathing of the Foundling. 

“Who’s there?” 

Atin’s leg moved. Her bare feet slipped away as she sat up. He heard the click of a blaster. He wasn’t easily rattled, but if he startled her again, he would be shot. He felt uncomfortably naked. His armor was up in the cockpit. Danger thrilled through every vein and artery in his body. He was cold. She couldn’t see him. He couldn’t see her. 

“Please don’t shoot me,” he said. “It would be really inconvenient for both of us.”

“Din?” she asked. “What are you… what are you doing?”

He curled his fingers on the edge of the wall. He heard her sharp intake of breath. “Close your eyes.”

She went dead still, and he could feel the bristling energy coming off of her. 

“Are… are you… where’s your helmet?” 

“In the cockpit. So please, close your eyes.” 

“Din, don’t. Don’t do this to me. Don’t put me in this position. You know I want to look at you. I’m going to struggle to respect your beliefs if you make it deliberately difficult.” 

“Please. Play along.” 

She was quiet for a minute. “Okay.” 

He sat on the edge of the bunk compartment, moving slowly, quietly. Once he was certain that his face was turned away from her view, he said. “You can open them now.” 

The sensation of her eyes on his nearly-bare back was strange, alien and unsettling. He could practically feel her searching. He sat rifle-straight for a minute, but he was still exhausted, and well, she’d already seen him, so he relaxed, hunching over. 

“Listen, I… I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I told the Armorer. I just… I can’t think of you as dar’manda. You may not wear armor, and you may not have a covert, but… you’re every bit a Mandalorian, just as much as I am.” 

He lifted his head. “Well, however much Mandalorian I am now.” 

There was a quiet shuffling as she moved closer to him. He felt as jumpy as a startled loth-cat. 

“Our covert… was wiped out. Because of me. Because of my actions with the Foundling. When the Guild… when he and I were cornered, they came to me. We’d been living in secret. They came out. And the Imps came and wiped them out. I found their armor. In a pile. The visors had all been gashed in. They… were gone.” 

“Din…” 

“Knowing there are others out there… that our ways live on, that’s all we have. As far as I know, it’s just me and her now. She might know of more. And you… you know things we don’t. You know songs we don’t, things we don’t. You’re Bo-Katan’s daughter. You speak the language.”

She was reaching out to him. His heart pounded in his chest. He was used to this being a fight response, and it was hard to be still. When her fingers touched his shirt, he jumped, and she pulled away. 

“No, it’s fine,” he said. “It’s fine. I… I want you to. Just… don’t look at my face.” 

“You hardly know me,” she said. “You hardly have a reason to trust me. And yet, you’re giving me this?” 

“I wouldn’t say I hardly know you. I’ve seen you in two fights. I know your deepest secrets. My kid likes you. I know what you’re passionate about, what pushes you forward. I know you love our people, and foundlings. I know you’re a mother. I know… I understand some things about you. I’ve seen you kill.”

Her hand pressed tenderly to his back. She could feel the heat coming off of him, and she leaned into it. 

“Anyway, I figured I should apologize to you… without anything in the way. So you know that I understand how serious what I did was, revealing your truth. My Armorer, my  _ alor _ , I don’t know how she thinks of you, and I can’t know, either.”

Her breathing was shallow and quick. Her hand was drifting from his back around to his side. His breathing quickened too, her touch soft and delicate. 

Closer than he thought she was, her voice just behind his neck, she said, “I’m sorry. For screaming at you. I… I know it was wrong. Cruel.” 

“We were both wrong.” 

She reached for the door panel. Flicked off the light, which left them in the dark. Her breathing was still quick. His grew quicker. 

“Din… If you say no, I’ll--”

“Ask me, before I lose my nerve,” he said hoarsely. 

A moment of silence, then, “Will you kiss me?” 

He didn’t hesitate. Not for one second. No one had ever accused him of thinking things through all the way, and he certainly wasn’t about to start. “Yes.” 

He turned, and in the darkness, his cheek touched hers. It was electrifying, jolts shooting through his heart, his gut. She reached up, held his face in both her hands. She took a little breath, ran her fingers along his face around his mouth, along the line of his nose, under his eyes. 

“What?” he asked breathlessly. “What’s the matter?” 

“Nothing, nothing. You… you have rough cheeks.” 

“Oh. Sorry, I…”

She pulled him against her mouth, kissing him deeply. Her lips were soft, her breath heavy. It was intoxicating, like the time he and Paz Vizla had gotten into the stash of  _ tihaar  _ that the covert had been storing for the _ cin vhetin  _ ceremony. He was as drunk now as he was then, his head spinning. Her smell, woodsy and sweet, was all he could breathe in. He took her arm, pulled her closer against him. 

Before he knew what was happening, she was easily slipping her leg over his lap, straddling him, all over him. Her softness pressed against him was all-consuming, breasts and belly and thighs giving under his rough, unskilled touch. She raked her fingers through his dark, messy hair, down his neck and back. He was hard, the pounding in his cock matching the pounding in his chest. 

“Atin,” he sighed. The reaction was instant, she pulled him closer, like she was trying to climb inside him. 

“Din,” she whispered back. 

Oh. 

He got it now. He understood when his whole body screamed for him to bury himself inside her, get closer, even closer. He groaned. It slipped out of him, but the sound of his own voice pulled him a little closer to reality. 

“We have to… we have to stop,” he gasped, and then suddenly, she was gone. She had backed away, and he heard her hit the bench, where Imperial troopers had once sat and waited for patrol. She was breathing heavily, but so was he. He stood up, paced up and down the dark catwalk. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry, I--”

“No. Don’t. Be sorry, I mean. I just…” 

He sighed. 

“We have to sleep.” 

“Yes.” 

“Tomorrow, we find Saxon.” 

“Yes.” 


	10. The Rifle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atin sure is comfortable stealing Din's tools...

Din woke up with a start. The sun was well up, and the sun was streaming into the cockpit. He hurried and dressed, climbing down the ladder. Neither the foundling nor the Legate were in the bunk, and it suddenly hit him exactly what he had done the night before. The hatch was open, cool morning air bringing the sounds of the child cooing and the Armorer stoking a fire. 

Blood rushed to the surface of his skin. If the Armorer found out… but why would she, she wouldn’t even ask. She never doubted him. Somehow that made it worse. He recalled the feel of her skin against his, her mouth, her softness, the heat of her against him. 

Where was she? 

He opened the weapons cabinet. His rifle was gone. 

His pulse thundered in his ears. 

The Armorer turned to see him as he hurried down the gangway. The Foundling toddled up to him, and he bent down to pick him up as he continued to her. 

_ “The Legate--” _

_ “Took your rifle and went to the village about an hour ago.” _

_ “You let her?”  _

_ “Of course. I helped her sight it in.”  _

Din sighed. 

_ “You know she can’t fight.”  _

_ “You can get another rifle.”  _

Of course. She didn’t know he didn’t care about the rifle. Or, at least, that the rifle was not his primary concern. How many times was he allowed to sigh in irritation before she beat him with her mallet? 

There was a loud crack. Din looked around. There was a tremor running through the ground, a constant thrum of motion that rattled not just the trees, but also his nerves. This felt very much like an omen that today was going to go badly. 

_ “Will you stay with the foundling? She’s going to do something stupid and I have to stop her.”  _

_ “She said she was going to go kill a member of Clan Saxon. This seemed perfectly reasonable.”  _

Din sighed again, and decided that was the limit.  _ “That’s not her way.” _

_ “Well, then you had better go stop her. I will watch over the Foundling.”  _

_ “Has he eaten?”  _

_ “The Legate gave him a ration bar, and then he found a lizard.”  _

Din looked at the Foundling.  _ “No more lizards. I’ll be back.”  _

The Foundling cooed. 

  
  


As he made his way into town, the tremors in the ground continued. The town was on edge, the hackles on every being raised. Clearly, Atin had been busy. 

He would check the high places. She was a sniper. She’d stay high, look for good nests to keep herself from getting blown up. 

“Hey, Mando!” 

He turned his head, saw a woman in a cracked doorway. “Don’t go that way!” 

He tilted his head.  _ “Why not?”  _

A loud  _ ping!  _ Rang out as his beskar took a hit. He hit the ground, smoke curling away from his chest. He groaned as he got up, checking himself over before heading for the cover of barrels. A returning shot fired from a second floor window, aimed at the bulky figure who had moved cover. The shot that had hit him had been a plasma blast, not a solid slug, and he was still alive, so clearly Atin hadn’t lost his rifle yet. 

“On account of the shootout happening,” said the woman as she watched him get up. “Is that real beskar?”

_ “Where are the snipers?”  _

“One ducked into the cantina, one is down here on the street.”

He lifted his head, turned on the thermal imaging in his helmet. He saw a bulky shape about 30 yards from him. Not Atin. Probably Saxon. 

_ “How long they been going at it?”  _

“Just started. Looking like they’re going to be trenched in for a while, the girl in the cantina is a good shot but the rude man is pretty nervy.” 

_ “Is there a back door to the cantina?”  _

“No, but our cellars are connected,” she said, gesturing behind herself. “Need through?” 

Another tremor, another distant crack. The ground rumbled beneath his boots. He hurried toward the woman’s house, and she led him to the cellar entrance. He tried not to think when he climbed down the steps, tried not to remember his parents and his childhood, and how difficult it had been, at first, to enter the covert--

“If you think you can get this wrapped up, that would be great,” she said. “It’s looking like there’s going to be a tecshift tonight.”

_ “A what?”  _

“Oh, every once in a while the ground splits open and the continental plates move. It happens.” 

The Mandalorian stared at her for a good 30 seconds.  _ “Not generally, no.”  _

She shrugged. “It does here.”

He hurried down through the cellar, pushing some crates over to access the other building’s side. The door was jammed, good chance that it would put Atin on edge when he opened it. Shooting out the door panel, he reflexively backed away from the shower of sparks, before using his beskar pauldron and his own weight to bust the door down. 

_ “Atin!”  _

No response. He stayed low as he passed through the cantina, hurried up the steps, checking every room on the second floor. None. Climbing the steps to the roof, He stayed low again in case Saxon had wised up and moved to higher ground. 

“ _ Atin,”  _ he said quietly. 

“I’m here,” she answered. 

She was small, incredibly so. She’d found a stack of crates to hide in, and was trenched in pretty good. She had a clear view of the whole street. He joined her, keeping as much of his beskar facing out as he could. 

_ “You stole my rifle.”  _

“Sorry.” 

_ “It’s going to be a real bitch to sight in again.”  _

“Yep.”

Her hands were shaking, and he had a feeling that it wasn’t the cold that had her so jumpy. Her hair was tied back, and she was wearing the gaberwool coat. She looked like she hadn’t slept well, if at all. 

_ “You sure you want to do this?”  _

She sighed. 

“You know, I’m starting to wonder if you’re actually trying to convince me not to kill him. Like you maybe think I should let him live or something. Which would be wild.” 

Din looked at her. 

_ “I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I certainly can’t tell you not to kill him. We’ve killed a lot of people in the last 24 hours, although it was all in self-defense.” _

She bristled. 

_ “But I would be a pretty bad friend if I didn’t at least tell you that I don’t think this is the right thing for you to do. I can’t let you compromise your beliefs out of anger.”  _

There was a long pause. She aimed, fired. 

_ “Did you--” _

“Just keeping him pinned.” 

_ “You’re burning up all my slugs to keep him pinned?”  _

She didn’t answer. She was completely unrepentant. 

“I let you compromise your beliefs.”

_ “Is that what this is about?”  _

“It’s not  _ not  _ what this is about.” 

He sat down behind the crates, stretched out his legs and crossed them.  _ “I’m a grown man. I know what I did, what I was doing. You didn’t  _ let  _ me compromise my beliefs, I chose to allow myself to make… an exception. I guess. You didn’t tell  _ her _ , did you?”  _

“Tell her what?” 

He chuckled. 

_ “You know this isn’t the justice you believe in. You believe in the kind of justice that has lawyers and courts and paperwork.”  _

“It’s the justice you believe in.” 

_ “Yeah, maybe once. Nowadays, I’m not so sure what I believe in.” _

“Parenthood will do that to you.” 

_ “Look, here’s an idea. We head back to the Razor Crest. We freeze Saxon in carbonite, you take him back to the New Republic and make him stand trial for war crimes. You take your mother’s helmet and you put it in some fancy case in your fancy city apartment, and all is well.” _

She considered. 

“Yeah, I could live there,” she said. “So how do we get him there?”

_ “Leave that to me. And give me back my rifle before you shoot out all my slugs.”  _

Suddenly, there was a huge, ear-splitting crack, so loud that Atin dropped the rifle trying to cover her ears. Even his helmet couldn’t protect him. He looked up, over the crates to the direction of the river. The trees were quivering, birds flying out of them in panic. 

“The baby!” she gasped. She picked up the rifle, handed it to him. “Go!” 

He leapt to his feet, ran down the stairs. 

He headed straight out the door of the cantina, and the second he was out the door, he was dodging blaster fire. Atin was right behind him, providing cover, narrowly dodging being shot. He made it out of the outpost, well past the town limits, before he noticed Atin wasn’t with him. 

He continued on anyway, feeling the pull all the while to go back for her. It was like a snare wire, wrapped around his heart, trying to rip it out of him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello this is a fanfiction here is the plot convenient environmental opponent for the metaphorically resonant thing I was going for


	11. The Verd'troan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Definitely one of the worst breakups that the Mandalorian has ever experienced.

When he reached the Razor Crest, he found the Armorer and the Foundling. She was in the process of launching, trying to get the Foundling off of dangerous ground, when he pounded on the side of the ship. 

She lowered the gangway from the cockpit, and he jumped up onto it. 

The child was in his pram, chattering loudly and angrily until he saw his Mandalorian, when he quieted down. 

_ “Legate Silva is in the outpost, we have to go back for her--” _

_ “The planet’s surface is highly unstable, landing will be difficult.” _

_ “So we don’t land. You keep the Crest close to the surface, I’ll go down for her. If something happens to me, my Foundling goes with Paz Visla,”  _ he said, turning and heading back out. 

The ground under his feet shook and rumbled, making it hard to run. The townsfolk, who appeared to be used to this, had formed single-file orderly lines out of town. They were watching the drama unfolding with the Mandalorians with some interest and some concern. 

_ “Atin!”  _

He heard blaster fire, and sighed heavily.

And then he saw Cache Saxon, running for his life, with no satchel. Din ran at him, cornering him as side streets and alleys closed off. The main thoroughfare was still more or less clear. Cache growled. 

“First her, now you!?”

_ “Where is she?”  _ he demanded. 

Cache pulled a vibroknife from his boot. His hair was a mess, his clothes were dirty, and he appeared to be at least lightly injured. 

A blaster shot  _ just  _ missed his head, and he ducked. Clearly, this was all he needed to decide whether or not he wanted to take on Din, who was still fresh and frosty. He ran at the Mandalorian. 

Din drew his blaster, but struggled to get a good shot. Cache was quicker than he looked, and before he knew it, he was being tackled. 

Something sharp cut through his back collar, grazed his skin. The vibroknife clattered against his helmet, buzzing loudly in his skull. He heard blaster fire. A stray bolt hit his pauldron. He felt a searing pain shoot through his neck and the base of his skull, and a scream rang out. More blaster fire, and then Cache Saxon hit the ground. Din raised his hand, and his fingers came away bloody. 

“Come on!” shouted Atin, carrying the satchel. 

Why had he even bothered to come back for her? Clearly, she was fine.

She got a good look at his collar, hot blood spilling down it as they hurried out of town. He felt himself getting dizzy. Atin grabbed his hand and pulled him, leading him to where the Razor Crest had set down for just a minute, just long enough for them to climb the gangway. A massive crack in the ground split open, devouring dirt and plants and screaming as it tore the village in half. 

The hatch closed as Din laid down on the catwalk, catching his breath. Or trying to, anyway. It was like the oxygen was being robbed from him. His neck throbbed.

Atin looked up the ladder to the cockpit. “Everything okay up there?” 

_ “Where is Din Djarin?”  _

“He’s here, he’s injured," she answered. 

The Armorer appeared, dropping down the ladder. She was blurry, but grabbed him and was looking him over when he felt his helmet being lifted. 

“NO!” 

He was nauseated, he could barely speak. How much blood was he losing? The pain didn’t seem that bad. 

“I need to look at his wound, he’s passing out! Look,” she said, lifting his hand. It fell, and he couldn’t stop it from hitting the metal floor, echoing through the ship. 

_ “His helmet cannot be removed, it’s against the Creed--” _

“Oh come  _ on  _ lady! We even had exceptions for this on Concordia and Concord Dawn! He’s a father, do you know anyone else who can take care of this weird green kid!? His Foundling needs him!”

_ “It is forbidden!”  _

“I know the Warrior’s Mask,” she insisted. “Go upstairs, and wait until I call you.” 

Din wanted to argue. He wanted to protest. But all that came out of his mouth were unintelligible groans. His cowl was soaked through. Terror gripped him, but with his head swimming, he couldn’t do much. He heard the hiss of his helmet unlatching, impulsively reached his blaster--but then felt a hand gently lower to his face, and quiet, solemn chanting. The only word he could make out was  _ beskar _ , because it was immediately recognizable to his ear. He wanted to feel betrayed, but he couldn’t, and he wasn’t completely sure why.

He felt a cool spray against his neck, and it sent shudders down his spine. 

“You’re going to be alright, Din,” she said quietly. 

“My helmet…”

“Yeah, well, welcome to parenthood. You don’t get to die a cool warrior’s death anymore because none of us know how to take care of your Foundling.” 

Her voice was low. She worked with trembling hands. Something sticky was drying on his face, tightening on his skin. 

“It’s okay,” she went on. “I did the  _ Verd’troan. _ ”

“What is--”

“They taught it to me on Concordia. We used it for warriors who didn’t want their faces seen. It’s an old Mando thing. But there is blood all over your face.”

“Oh. I’m used to that.” 

“It’s my blood.”

“Not used to that.”

She still didn’t look at his face but her work gave him the opportunity to look at her.

After injecting him with something that made him start to feel better immediately, she said, “I have to cauterize the wound before I can put a bacta patch on it. The patches don’t work as well on big wounds.” 

“Whatever.” 

She snorted, and her hands seemed to tremble less. She dug through his pack to find the cauterizer pen, and once she found it, she turned it on. Her hands shook worse, and she sat up straight to shake them out. 

“Do you need me to flirt with you so you can use the cauterizer?” he asked. His voice sounded terrible, but the effect was instant. She giggled, took a breath. 

“Maybe.”

She applied numbspray, and the effect was very strange. He hadn’t spent much time thinking about what it would be like to have his neck go numb, but the awareness that his cowl was touching his skin, and the sensation of it not being there, was disconcerting. 

“Din, I am… so sorry.” 

“For...?” 

“Dragging you into this mess. For being the reason you’re injured. For taking your helmet off even though I had to in order to fix you. Which I only have to do because I ran off with your rifle to go exact vengeance or whatever.”

“Well, if we start getting into that kind of logic, then the only reason any of this happened was because you hired me in the first place. And the only reason you had to hire me was because you ran yourself off to the furthest reaches of the civilized galaxy.”

There was a long silence. 

“Did you kill Saxon?” he asked. 

“I think so. I wasn’t aiming to kill, I was just hoping not to hit you.”

He could feel, in a strange, vague way, the cauterizer against his skin. Atin was leaned over him, working quickly and quietly. Her fingers were gentle as they could be. 

“Did you get the helmet?” 

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“How do you feel?” 

“Like now that I have it, I don’t know what to do with it. Feels wrong, keeping it in a case. Maybe I should give it to your Armorer.” 

Atin backed off, looking over her work.. “It looked worse than it was. Let me get you cleaned up, and then you’ll need to change.”

She reached for sanitizing fluid, soaking gauze pads in it and mopping his neck carefully, but thoroughly. She pasted a bacta pad to his skin just as the numbspray was starting to lose effectiveness. Taking his hand, she helped him sit up, looking at his beskar the whole time.

Atin stood, walked away, cleaning up her mess and putting the medpac away. Once he wasn’t so dizzy, she handed him back her helmet. Dread welled inside him, knotting in his gut. 

_ “She…”  _ he began, gesturing at the cockpit.  _ “Did she seem…?” _

“She understood that it was necessary. She’s not happy, but she’ll get over it. You’re not in trouble.”

He nodded.  _ “Did she tell you what she was doing here?”  _

“She said she was scouting locations to move her forge. You should maybe suggest that this is a shit spot. I don’t know why anyone stays here, if the tectonic plates just  _ move  _ without so much as a by-your-leave.” 

He watched her. She was bleeding from a clean, fresh cut on her leg, straight through the cloth of her trousers. 

_ “Do you need help with that?” _

“With… oh!” 

She pulled the medpac back out and looked at her leg. “Oh, no, I’m fine. I’ve got it. Thanks.” 

_ “Sit,”  _ he said, in the kind of tone that brooked no argument. 

Atin stared at him, and casually said, “I’m fine, Mandalorian.” 

The tension in his chest tightened a bit further. The stim injections she had used on him were starting to kick in, and he was feeling a little better every second. Whatever it was, whether stimulant or blood volume enhancers, it cleared the lightheadedness away. His neck was killing him, but that would get better soon too. 

_ “Please,”  _ he said, and he watched the instant effect that the word had on her.  _ “Let me help you.” _

She dropped her shoulders, looked at the ceiling and sighed. “Alright.”

_ “Up here,” _ he said, gesturing at the galley table. Hesitantly, she sat. He sat, her wound close to him.  _ “You did this for me?” _ he asked. 

“Yeah.” 

_ “I was bleeding out. There was plenty.”  _

She pinked, raising her eyebrows and closing her eyes. “I am aware, thanks. It… can’t be used with your own blood. It’s got to be someone else’s. Someone… well, normally, someone from your same clan. But… well. It’s for dire circumstances. Has to be the last member of a clan, or a leader of some kind who can’t be replaced.” 

Din was silent. He kept his focus on her leg. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made up this whole ass ritual tbh. Verd'troan actually translates as "the warrior's face" but fuck karen traviss for not making up a word for "mask" in the entire mandalorian language


	12. The Parting of the Ways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din Djarin and Atin Silva knew they would have to say goodbye to one another eventually.

Din waited quietly and patiently outside of the ship. The child toddled around, chasing joonbugs that glittered in the afternoon sun. Atin was changing her clothes in the cockpit, he knew she didn’t need--or want--him to leave, but he still knew it was better to draw the separation line now. Extra privacy. As little speaking as possible. 

The Armorer had requested to be dropped off before they hit the Mid Rim. She didn’t want to be in populated areas, and Din couldn’t say he blamed her. After everything she’d seen recently, she deserved her scruples. She caught a transport back to Nevarro with a smuggler who was known to be tight-lipped about his passengers. 

Their journey had passed in silence. The unspoken things between them remained unspoken.

Through it all, Din felt raw even with his armor on. 

She’d given him time to clean up while they’d been in hyperspace. He’d miss that. Atin had snuggled and kissed and cooed at the Foundling, bathed him and changed him and played nurse just a little longer. She was certain the kid would forget her, but not the mothering. He had a feeling that wasn’t true, and he also suspected that she was going to miss the child far, far too much.

He heard steps coming down the ladder, and he walked back up the gangway. The Foundling followed, his ears perked. He knew something was up, and Din knew he was going to cry and cry when she was gone. She was dressed in her short jacket, and in a long, white, silky dress that billowed behind her a little. It took his breath away. 

“How do I look?” she asked. Then, after a mere seconds’ pause, said, “Nevermind, I don’t want to know. I know it’s bad. I’ll fix it later.”

No. No, don’t say that. Please, don’t say that. 

Every neuron in his brain was firing on that dress, what it would look like underneath. Was this what it was like for everyone else when they looked at his helmet? The raw, primal curiosity? He pressed the blue button to raise the gangway. He had to make a choice--either live with this, or make a very serious mistake. 

The Armorer had warned him.  _ “She will tempt you to stray from the Way.”  _

The guilt was tearing at him. She dug around in her satchel, and produced from it a large wrapped package that she tucked into her elbow, and a credits bag. He’d seen millions of them. Hers had a little blue flower embroidered on the corner. Hand-embroidered, it looked like. 

“Well, here you go,” she said, handing him the bag. It was heavy in his hand. “20,000 New Republic credits, in ingots--are ingots okay? I… I maybe should have asked…”

_ “Ingots are fine,”  _ he said, knowing it came out a bit strangled. 

“And your beskar,” she said, handing it over. She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes, green as the bottles of cheap liquor in the cantina on Nevarro. 

_ “Atin… after everything that’s happened--” _

“Take it.” She was firm. “For the foundlings. From what I’ve heard, she’s got to be sitting on one of the biggest stashes of beskar in the known galaxy.” 

_ “That’s… very generous of you. I was once a foundling.”  _

She seemed surprised. “I… You were?” 

He nodded.  _ “Yes.”  _

“And now you’ve taken in a foundling of your own,” she said with a smile. “See, you need this. All I’m doing is collecting dust with it. Bring it to your Armorer. She can rebuild your covert with this. It belongs with true Mandalorians. Crazy as I think you guys are, at least you are living your truth.” 

He took the beskar, and along with the credits, he set them on a crate. He was pretty sure the crate contained blasters that hadn’t been touched since Sorgan. Din was hesitant. It looked suspicious. Atin tried to read him, but gave up and looked sympathetic instead. 

“What’s the matter, loth-cat?” 

_ “What did you call me?”  _

She raised her hands. “Um… I’m sorry, I… I didn’t mean… I just… you’re like an old loth-cat sometimes, y’know? I didn’t mean…”

_ “I… No, I don’t mind, I just… would you mind closing your eyes?”  _

Atin turned pink under her freckles. She smiled. “Sure.” 

She did. She’d put makeup on, and her narrow eyelids were gold. He watched her startle a bit at the sound of his helmet’s mechanics whirring. He set it on the crate beside the money and metal. 

“Din, I… I’m not sure… I get that that was a one-time-thing, I’m fine with that--”

He leaned in, pressing close against her. His cuirass pressed into his chest, through all the layers of protective cloth. He covered her eyes before she could open them in shock, and kissed her. Atin’s reaction was instant, first of hesitation. Her arms raised in surprise before she threw them around his neck. Pulling him tightly against her, she raked her fingers through his hair, pulling a groan out of his throat.

He wrapped his arm around her ribs. The softest sounds slipped from her, sounds that he could never have guessed would do these things to him. His gut was in freefall, he felt weightless. Taking his hand from her eyes, he found them still closed. 

“Atin,” he breathed. “I want…” 

“What?” she asked. 

“I want you to look at me.” 

She opened her eyes, keeping them trained on the center of his cuirass, the beskar heart of his armor. 

“I meant… my face.” 

She turned ghostly white. “No, absolutely not. NO. Din, I am not going to compromise--”

“Please.” 

She sighed. “Oh… damn it all.”

“You want to see me. I want you to see me. No living being has seen me without my helmet, and… I just… I want you to.” 

“You’re  _ sure _ ?” 

“Certain. Besides… you’re dead to a lot of people.” 

She sighed, holding his hands. When she lifted her face to his, she gasped a little. He could look directly into her green eyes, keen and sure, unobstructed. He wasn’t sure what the look on her face meant. His heart skipped a beat. All the times someone had asked what he looked like under there in a threatening way, all the times someone had screamed that he must be ugly under there to be such a bastard, and the unbothered neutrality of IG-11 came back to him. He didn’t care what he looked like, he was a Mandalorian, it wasn’t the face that made him. But… well, he cared a little now. 

“You have... “

He raised his eyebrows, looked down at their hands. “Yeah, I know,” he began, about to say  _ rough cheeks.  _

“Din, you have the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen.” 

He looked back at her face, and he felt the heat on his cheeks. A self-conscious smile spread itself across his mouth. “Thanks.” 

She touched his face, her fingers tender and soft. She ran her thumb along a scar near his nose. “Big, gorgeous, kind eyes.”

Tears sprang to hers. “I… really don’t want to leave.” 

“Yeah, you do. You’ve got work, and I’ve got work, and... there’s only one bed on the  _ Crest _ …”

“I don’t see the problem,” she said flirtatiously, drawing the blood out of his chest and into his face and groin. She drew him down for another kiss, and this time she kept her eyes open. 

“Don’t lose your Way, Din Djarin,” she whispered, her mouth still so near to his he could feel the soft breath and smell the salt of tears. 

“Don’t stop trying to fix the galaxy,” he returned. 

There was a loud clatter, a stack of something fell over, and there was a soft coo of distress from the child. Atin and him both turned and looked, smiling. 

“If there’s ever anything I can do for you… tell me. Don’t hesitate. And… take care of him, would you? I like him. And if you can’t find his kind, then he’s going to be a really, really cool Mandalorian.” 

She slipped out of his grasp, picked up her two satchels, and pressed the button for the gangway. As it lowered, she looked back at him, and smiled. 

“ _ Ret’urcye mhi,  _ Din Djarin.” 

And she walked away. 

**Author's Note:**

> Ope here's another OC fanfiction where the Mandalorian takes off his helmet for that One Special Girl. How about that season finale, huh?


End file.
